Jakarta – Fighting between local Malays and settlers from Madura broke out on Thursday in the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan on Borneo island, leaving at least one dead, an official said.

"The clash erupted in Kumai in the early hours of Thursday and was still going on five hours later," said district police Second Sergeant Surti from Pangkalan Bun, some 10 kilometres northwest of the harbour town of Kumai.

Surti said the fighting involved the local Malay community and settlers from Madura, an island off the coast of East Java. She said she had heard that one man had been killed in the violence so far, but that the death had yet to be officially confirmed.

The district police chief, Surti said, was currently in Kumai to lead efforts to restore peace and order there. A staff member at the district adminstration's information department said that several houses in Kumai were on fire, but could give no further details.

The Antara news agency said that the fight erupted following a dispute between workers in the local timber industry the previous day that led to the killing, by a fuel bomb, of a local Malay early Thursday. The death sparked anger and attacks on the settlers and their homes.

Kumai has already seen at least two eruptions of violence pitting the local ethnic Malay community with the Madurese migrant community there this year. The Madurese, a hardworking but aggressive ethnic group, were the target of violent attacks in the neighbouring province of West Kalimantan in 1999.

The West Kalimantan clashes pitted them against the local Malay community, who received the support of the indigenous Dayak tribesmen. Some 3,000 people perished in the months of violence there last year and tens of thousands of migrants have been displaced.