Tsunami watch as earthquake strikes Indonesia

A tsunami warning has gone out after a major earthquake struck Indonesia's main island of Java, shaking buildings in the capital and damaging others closer to the epicentre.

People fled shopping centres and were evacuated from office towers in the capital, Jakarta, as buildings swayed violently for at least a minute just after 3:00 pm local time or 8:00am UK time.

At least 27 people are known to have died and hundreds have been injured.

John Aglionby, a journalist with the Financial Times newspaper, was in Jakarta when the earthquake struck. "The whole building started to sway" he told CNN news channel. "People left the building. But there was no signs of damage here."

Student Rini, 18, said after she fled the Grand Indonesia shopping centre in the heart of Jakarta. "It was very scary. The floor was swaying and I heard loud sounds from the upper floor, like something was going to collapse,” she told Agence France Presse news agency. "People were screaming and I quickly took off my high heels and ran as fast as I could to get out of the mall."

People panicked in the streets in Tasikmalaya, a city on Java located 88 miles from the epicentre, as some older buildings were damaged and there was no electricity. Medical teams were being sent out to the city, the health ministry said.

About three weeks ago, a string of earthquakes - ranging in magnitude from 4.7 to 6.7 on the Richter Scale- struck off the western coast of Indonesia's Sumatra Island. At least seven people were injured and one building collapsed in Padang City in West Sumatra, officials said.

Local tsunami warnings were issued for coastal areas within several hundred kilometres of the epicentre soon after it struck, but were withdrawn about half an hour later. Jaya Murjaya, at Indonesia's seismology agency, said there had been a slight increase in the sea level at Pelabuhanratu in West Java. "The change of the sea level showed that there was a small tsunami," he said.

Indonesia lies on what is known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, where several tectonic plates converge.

A quake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra in 2004 triggered a catastrophic tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people around Asia, including 168,000 in Indonesia.