FLATTENED

The waves washed away wooden cottages and kiosks lining the shoreline facing the Indian Ocean, witnesses said.

"When the waves came, I heard people screaming and then I heard something like a plane about to crash nearby and I just ran," Uli Sutarli, a plantation worker who was on Pangandaran beach, told Reuters by telephone.

"All wooden structures are flattened to the ground but hotel buildings made out of concrete are still standing," he said.

Indonesia's official Antara news agency reported deaths had occurred at two other beach resorts in Java.

"The search is still going on to find those who probably have been swept away by the tsunami waves," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose mainly Muslim country is the world's fourth most populous, told reporters.

Sweden's Foreign Ministry said two Swedish children from a holidaying family were believed to be missing. There were no immediate reports of other non-Indonesians dead or missing.

The U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake had a magnitude of 7.2, while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.7. Indonesia's state meteorology and geophysics agency said the quake's strength was 6.8 on the Richter Scale.

"RING OF FIRE"

Indonesia's 17,000 islands sprawl along a belt of intense volcanic and seismic activity, part of what is called the "Pacific Ring of Fire".

A tsunami warning for Java's southern coast and nearby Christmas Island was issued by the Pacific Centre. Police on Christmas Island, an Australian territory south of Indonesia, said there was no damage there.

India also issued a warning for the Andaman and Nicobar islands, badly hit by the 2004 tsunami, but officials said there was no real threat. The Maldives, a low-lying chain of islands to the southwest of India, also issued a warning.

The December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was triggered by a massive earthquake. Nearly 170,000 people were killed or reported missing in Indonesia's Aceh province. Tens of thousands died elsewhere, the majority in Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.