Death toll rises to 310

Hundreds of Indonesians prayed out in the open next to rice paddies and in the streets on Friday, as the death toll from an earthquake that flattened their town in western Java rose to 310.

Muslim cleric Muhamad Jamhur led a congregation in prayer in an outdoor volleyball court just 200 metres from a mosque whose walls were left cracked by the shallow 5.6-magnitude quake earlier this week.

Twenty-four people remain missing, said an Indonesian official, adding the search would continue, although rescuers said hopes of finding them alive were slim.