The country's long and brutal economic crisis is sending increasing numbers of people living in the capital insane, a local newspaper said on Friday.

"The number of psychotic people in Jakarta has almost tripled since the crisis," the Kompas daily quoted Endang Dunga, head of the city's social services office, as saying. "Most of them are in a very bad condition in which they don't remember where they came from or who their families are," she added. "Many even don't remember their own name."

Ms Dunga estimated that the number of people suffering from severe mental problems had risen from 790 in 1997, when the country's economic crisis first began, to 2,100.

She said that many of the afflicted were forced to live on the streets of Jakarta, noting that the capital's four state-run mental hospitals simply did not have the capacity to cope with the huge numbers of patients involved.

Indonesia is still struggling to pull out of the financial crisis, and some economists have predicted it could worsen.