Indonesia - A huge landslide that engulfed a small village and buried more than 40 local inhabitants after this week's powerful quake in West Java has become a grisly local tourist attraction.

In Cikangkareng village about 60 miles south of Jakarta, villagers struggled to remove the mound of rocks and soil in their search for relatives and friends, while people from neighboring villages came by truck and motorbike to take photos of a tragedy that has dominated the television news.

The death toll from the 7.0 magnitude quake on Wednesday afternoon has climbed to 63, and could go higher, the authorities said, while several people are still missing under the landslide.

More than 25,000 people have been displaced in West Java since the earthquake, which hit just off the coast, and an estimated 86,000 homes were damaged, although no major power or industrial installations were hit.

We just want to take a close look. So far, we only watched the damage on TV, said Usep, 25, who came by motorbike with his friend from a neighboring village.

Kokom Komariah, a housewife from Kadungmekar village, was one of a group of 15 people, including adults and children, who came on the back of a pick-up truck to see the famous landslide.

My relatives and friends asked me to go with them to see the rubble. So I am here to witness the damage, she told Reuters.

A rescue team at the site has started to haul away the soil from the landslide, but because of the size and gradient, it has proved difficult to use earth-moving equipment at the site, and villagers have resorted to using just shovels and bamboo sticks to shift the rubble.

Reuters reporters saw many damaged houses, as well as tents and makeshift shelters on streets and in fields in West Java.

Indonesia's 17,000 islands are scattered along a belt of volcanic and seismic activity known as the Pacific ring of fire, one of the most quake-prone places on earth.

More than 170,000 Indonesians were killed or listed as missing after a 9.15 magnitude earthquake off Indonesia's Aceh province on Sumatra island triggered a tsunami in December 2004. A total of 230,000 people died in Indian Ocean countries.

Indonesia's seismology agency put the magnitude of Wednesday's quake at 7.3 with the epicenter 142 km (88 miles) southwest of Tasikmalaya, in West Java.

The quake was felt as far away as Surabaya, Indonesia's second city, 500 km (300 miles) northeast of Tasikmalaya, and on the resort island of Bali, about 700 km (420 miles) to the east.

(For a graphic: http:/graphics.thomsonreuters.com/RNGS/SEP/QUAKE.jpg)

(Reporting by Retno Palupi, Olivia Rondonuwu, Telly Nathalia in JAKARTA; Writing by Sara Webb)

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