Jakarta – Mobs stoned shops owned by ethnic Chinese and burned cars in the capital of Indonesia's South Sulawesi province on Tuesday after a young girl was hacked to death, police said.

They said the rioting was sparked after an ethnic Chinese man killed a girl from the local Bugis community in the provincial capital Ujung Pandang on Monday night.

"The nine-year-old girl was hacked to death with a machete," a police spokesman said.

The afternoon Suara Pembaruan daily said the girl, Ani Mujahidah, was killed 20 metres (yards) from her home by a 29- year-old mentally retarded man.

It said the man was set upon and beaten by locals before he was taken away by police. He died early on Tuesday morning in hospital, the newspaper said.

But mobs angered by the girl's death went on the rampage.

"All the Chinese shops in the city were stoned and five cars have already been torched," a policewoman in the city said in the late morning.

Mainly Moslem Indonesia has been hit by a number of ethnic and religious riots since late last year with ethnic Chinese and Christian churches often the targets of rioters.

Suara Pembaruan said at least three banks, a car showroom and hundreds of shops were damaged by angry rioters.

One resident said he could see at least a dozen fires burning around the city from the top of his building as fellow residents telephoned him with reports of bands of hundreds of youths roaming the city.

Businesses were closed in the port and trading town which is the centre of Indonesia's cocoa and coffee business from the key growing region in the highlands of South Sulawesi.

"No one has gone outside their houses today. There is no business happening, especially in cocoa," one trader said.

Others said the city remained tense late into the afternoon.

"People, especially the Chinese, are scared to go out. I see smoke everywhere in the city and I keep hearing the sirens of fire engines," a Chinese woman said.

"People are there on the street and security forces seem to be having trouble containing the people," she said.

The official Antara news agency quoted South Sulawesi police chief Brigadier-General Ali Hanafiah as saying police were holding 79 people for questioning following the rioting but gave no further details.

Sulawesi military commander Major-General Agum Gumelar described the riots as purely criminal actions and called on the people not to be easily provoked.