Rescue work was under way and the number of casualties was not immediately known, said an official in Guizhou province who would give only his surname Xue.
Large areas of southern China have been hit by flooding in the last week, with at least 239 people killed and another 109 missing. More than three million people have fled their homes over the past two weeks, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
On Sunday, floodwaters began receding in the hard-hit south and workers finished repairing a dike breach that forced the evacuation of 100,000 people.
But torrential rains have continued in the southwest, where the landslide occurred Monday afternoon in the village of Dazhai, said Xue, the provincial official who works in the flood prevention headquarters.
«The landslide was triggered by heavy rains in the past few days, especially last night’s rain. There is little chance that the people who are trapped will be able to survive,» Xue said in a phone interview from Guiyang, the provincial capital, about 200 km northeast of the landslide-hit area.
The official Xinhua News Agency had previously cited the municipal government as saying the number of trapped was 150 but later quoted a local spokesman as saying the number had been revised to 107.
In Malong county of Yunnan province, floodwaters had receded enough that some people returned to inspect their homes over the weekend, China Central Television said. Residents returned to find their mud-brick houses covered in sludge in areas that had been under 2 meters of water after a reservoir overflowed.
