PANGANDARAN, Indonesia: Unidentified tsunami victims were buried in a mass grave yesterday as rumours of fresh waves sent hundreds of traumatized residents running from the beach and jumping into cars, some shouting: "The water is coming!" The death toll climbed past 530, with more than 270 others missing.

An amateur video surfaced showing children playing in the surf and building sandcastles moments before the wall of black water swallowed the beach in hardest-hit Pangandaran on Monday afternoon.

The person who captured the wave on film runs away amid screams.

The tsunami was triggered by a magnitude 7.7 undersea earthquake and smashed into a 180-kilometre stretch of Java island's coastline, which was unaffected by the devastating tsunami in December 2004.

The region has since been rattled by a series of powerful aftershocks.

A 6.0 magnitude underwater quake elsewhere off Java's coast yesterday swayed buildings in the capital, Jakarta, for more than a minute and sent frightened office workers and residents streaming into the streets. There were no reports of damage or casualties.

Monday's 2-metre-high waves reached 200 metres inland in some places on Java's southern coast, destroying scores of houses, restaurants and hotels. Cars, motorbikes and boats were left mangled in fishing nets, furniture and other debris.

The number of dead has climbed steadily in recent days, going from fewer than 100 on Monday to 531 yesterday, said Maman Susanto, from the government's national disaster co-ordinating board.

Ambulances with blaring sirens brought two dozen bodies to a cemetery in Pangandaran for a mass burial as hundreds of spectators looked on.

As darkness fell, the bloated corpses of 17 women and seven men were numbered and then laid in the ground side by side, with five children among them.

"Nothing like this should ever happen again," said Mila Yulianti, 18, wiping away tears after an excavator dug a long hole at a cemetery near the coast.

Source: China Daily/agencies