The blast, which came days ahead of Indonesia's presidential election and exactly a month before Australia's general election, flattened the embassy's gate, mangled cars on the busy commercial street and shattered the windows of nearby high-rise buildings.

Greek foreign ministry spokesman Giergos Koumoutsakos from Athens said the Greek Embassy on the 12th floor of a nearby building was gutted, and three diplomats were slightly wounded.

Dazed survivors desperately tried to locate colleagues and relatives.

"I can't find my family," said Suharti, who had eight relatives working in the mission. "I am terrified. I don't know where they are."

A senior Indonesian police officer who asked not to be identified said eight people died in the 10:15am blast, including three policemen guarding the building. A doctor at a nearby hospital said 98 people were admitted with injuries, none of them foreigners.

"Initial investigations show this was a car bomb. We do not know whether anyone was in the car," police chief Gen. Dai Bachtiar said.

About a dozen Australians were slightly wounded, mostly by flying glass, an embassy spokeswoman said.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard breathed defiance.

"This is not a nation that is going to be intimidated by acts of terrorism," he told reporters in Melbourne.

His foreign minister, Alexander Downer, who was due to fly to Jakarta later yesterday along with a team of bomb experts, put the death toll at 11, all of them Indonesians.

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri pledged to track down those responsible, and broke off a trip to Brunei to fly back to Jakarta.

After a visit to the site and to blast victims in a nearby hospital, she called on Indonesians not to panic.

"I ask all Indonesian society to remain calm and to be on alert in terms of security," she said.

Her national police chief said the morning attack bore the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda linked militant Islamic network blamed for earlier blasts in Indonesia.

Windows in the nearby Russian embassy were among those blown out, some reports said.

Passers-by witnessed grisly scenes as security officers covered the bodies of victims ripped apart by the blast with newspapers. A severed human leg lay on the intersection between the two lanes of the street, its trousers torn of the by force of the explosion.

The police commander said the attack was similar to the 2002 Bali blasts that killed 202 people and last year's suicide car bombing of Jakarta's J.W. Marriott hotel that left 12 people dead.

"The modus operandi is very similar to other attacks, including the Bali bombings and the Marriott blast," Bachtiar said. "We can conclude (the perpetrators) are the same group."

"This group is the same as Azahari's group of bombers," he added. Azahari is a senior figure inside the Southeast Asian militant Islamic group Jemaah Islamiah, linked to al Qaeda and blamed for the Bali and Marriott blasts. Azahari is believed to have helped make the Bali and Marriott bombs.

PM SHOCKED

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia yesterday expressed deep shock at the loss of lives in tragic bomb blasts in Jakarta.

In a condolence message to Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri, Khaleda conveyed sympathy to the members of the bereaved familie.

She prayed that the families of the victims might bear the loss with courage and fortitude. She also prayed for eternal peace of the departed souls.

In another message to Indonesian Foreign Minister Dr N Hassan Wirajuda, Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan expressed profound shock at the loss of lives in the tragic bomb blast.

(AP/ REUTERS/UNB)