JAKARTA –– Ten young people were trampled or crushed to death as hundreds of music fans tried to force their way out of a rock concert in the Indonesian city of Bandung, police and hospital officials said Sunday.

Witnesses told the local Pikiran Rakyat daily that people inside the packed venue were trying to escape the crush just as hundreds of others were surging their way inside.

"Ten people were killed, one of them has not yet been identified. Six other people were injured," Bandung police chief Bambang Suparsono told the Detikcom online news portal.

The dead are mostly teenagers. He said an investigation was under way into the incident late Saturday.

Detikcom, quoting another police officer, said the capacity of the building was for 700 people but that only around 400 attended the concert by a popular heavy metal group called Besides.

The concert was being held to launch its latest album.

However Pikiran Rakyat said there were more than 1,500 people inside, which it said was about 500 more than the building's capacity.

Detikcom said at least 40 were being questioned, while a police officer at Bandung, the capital of West Java, said three organisers were being quizzed as suspects.

"The bodies of 10 people have been brought here but all but three have been taken by their family," said Toto, a staff member at the local hospital morgue where the dead were initially brought. Suparsono said the crush occurred as people tried to leave the Asia Africa Arts Hall in downtown Bandung.

One 19-year-old witness told Pikiran Rakyat: "Outside, there were hundreds of people pushing to enter. They were pushing at the gate.

"Inside, there were also a lot of people who wanted to leave, because the hall was so packed that it was difficult to breathe."

Another witness said the venue was so crowded that he did not have enough room to bend down to retrieve a shoe which had come loose.