A landslide triggered by heavy rains crashed into a village in Indonesia's Central Java province today, killing at least 10 people and trapping many more under muddy debris, an official said.
The pre-dawn landslide, the latest in a series on Java island that killed 71 people earlier this week, smashed into hundreds of houses in a mountainous village of around 700 residents.
Many were probably praying in the village mosque at the time of the landslide, police said, adding that the mosque was destroyed.
"Ten victims have been found dead and there could be many more because more than 100 houses are buried in mud," Yusman Irianto, head of the social department in the nearby town of Banjarnegara, said by telephone from the scene.
"We are looking for more victims and residents are trying to find out how many are missing."
Police in Banjarnegara, 350 km (220 miles) east of Jakarta, put the death toll so far at four and said a dozen were injured.
Broto Suyatno, a police officer from Banjarnegara, said about 500 of the 722 people in the Central Java village had been reported alive in the wake of the disaster.
"It happened around dawn, when people usually go to the mosque to pray. We have reports the mosque was flattened, so there may be more casualties," he said.
Floods and landslides are common in Indonesia, especially at this time of the year when the wet season is in full swing. Many landslides are caused by illegal logging or the clearing of farmland that strips away natural barriers to such disasters.
Around the East Java village of Kemiri, hundreds of rescue workers and soldiers have been trying to reach a handful of villages still cut off by floods and landslides that swept through the area late on Sunday.
Officials on Wednesday put the death toll there at 71, including two rescue workers who drowned in swollen rivers.
"Up until now, 71 have died and rescuers are trying to reach the cut-off areas," said Muhammad Suryadi, a member of the state disaster management agency in the nearby town of Jember, 800 km (500 miles) east of Jakarta.
Most of the villagers in the Kemiri area live on coffee plantations and river banks where many trees had been felled.