The quake, which was felt in the nearby country of East Timor, struck Alor island, 1,000 km east of the resort isle of Bali, and left hospitals struggling to cope with the wounded.

Local meteorologists put the magnitude of the quake, which struck at 4:26 am Jakarta time (2126 GMT Thursday) at 6.0 on the Richter scale, while the Observatory of Earth Sciences in Strasbourg recorded the tremor at 7.3.

Similar-sized quakes can cause massive destruction and high casualty figures but in impoverished and rural areas such as Alor, low-levels of urbanisation mean tolls are lower.

As of 0830 GMT, a total of 16 people across the island had been killed by the quake which was followed by three powerful aftershocks, Alor deputy police chief Hasan Kiko told AFP.

He said the tremors damaged more than 640 buildings, many of them homes, across the island.

"So far, we have received reports of 17 people killed in the earthquake from five police precincts. People here are still wary because we can still feel more aftershocks," he said.

Earlier, another policeman said that at least 100 people were hospitalised with serious and minor injuries and many people had left their dwellings to huddle in open fields.