Landslide buries 47 people in China’s southwestern Yunnan province

Rescue efforts under way in mountainous area of southwestern China after pre-dawn disaster.

Rescue efforts are under way in southwestern China’s mountainous Yunnan province after at least 47 people were buried in a landslide.

State news agency Xinhua reported that the disaster struck just before 6am (22:00 GMT on Sunday) in the village of Liangshui, beneath the town of Tangfang in Zhenxiong County.

Authorities said rescuers were trying to find victims buried in 18 separate houses. Xinhua showed footage of men in orange jumpsuits and hard hats picking their way though piles of concrete blocks and twisted steel. There was snow on some of the rubble and on buildings that were still standing.

The cause of the landslide was not immediately known.

Authorities said about 500 people had been evacuated.

Landslides are common in Yunnan, a remote region of China where steep mountain ranges rise up into the Himalayan Plateau.

China has experienced a string of natural disasters in recent months and Yunnan is among several provinces in the country’s southern region currently experiencing a cold wave and bitter temperatures near or below freezing.

The landslide comes just more than a month after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck the northwest between the Gansu and Qinghai provinces, killing at least 149 people and triggering heavy mudslides.

Nearly 1,000 people were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed.

It was China’s deadliest earthquake in nine years.