Eight die in blast at Australian embassy in Jakarta

8.30pm UPDATE

Eight people were reported killed and more than a hundred injured in an explosion today outside the Australian embassy in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the blast appeared to have been a car bomb. No one inside the heavily fortified embassy was seriously hurt.

El Shinta radio station said the casualties had been taken to the MMC Hospital, which is not far from the embassy.

An emergency room staffer at a nearby hospital said: "We have three bodies so far due to the blast," and added that dozens of people, mostly Indonesian office workers, were being treated.

Australian television said all embassy staff were accounted for although some had minor injuries.

Windows of buildings in and around the embassy were shattered.

A Reuters witness on the scene saw pieces of a head, hair and flesh and other body parts on the street.

"Get out of the way. You are stepping on evidence. There are flesh, bones, and remnants all over this place. Back off," a police officer said over a megaphone.

"My friend Anton just died, my friend Anton just died. He was a security guard," guard Siti Riani said, sobbing.

Hundreds of police were outside the embassy and thousands of people swarming in the street. Police were forming a line pushing people back.

"I was driving and suddenly there was an explosion," said one survivor, Paryadi. "Now I'm bleeding from the head."

Bleeding victims being taken from the embassy complex to ambulances, but police said the actual explosion was probably outside the embassy.

"It seems that the blast came from outside the embassy. If you look at it, the buildings that are most damaged are the buildings around the embassy, not the embassy," police major Widodo said.

Ambulances and fire trucks as well as police were on the scene but authorities gave no immediate data on casualties or information on their nationalities.

Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, has been hit by sporadic bomb attacks in recent years, including blasts in Bali in October 2002 that killed 202 people and at a luxury Jakarta hotel in August 2003 that killed 12.

The fortress-like Australian embassy building is surrounded by a tall fence made of thick metal tubes and has a large reinforced gate. The building is on Rasuna Said Road, one of central Jakarta's busiest roads, which is lined with office towers, embassies and hotels.

The blast occurred just two days ahead of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, in which about 3,000 people died.

- AGENCIES

Herald Feature: Bali bombing - October 2002