Torrential rain has triggered a landslide on Indonesia’s main island of Java that killed at least 10 people, with rescuers digging with their bare hands and farm tools to find nine missing people, including four children.

Dozens of soldiers, police and volunteers took part in the search in the village of Selopuro in East Java’s Nganjuk district, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Raditya Jati said on Monday.

The mud that rolled down from surrounding hills late on Sunday struck at least eight houses, injuring 14 people and leaving 21 people buried under tonnes of mud.

Two were rescued on Sunday.

An aerial photo shows the aftermath of the landslide on Monday. Photo: National Search and Rescue Agency of Indonesia

Rescuers on Monday found bodies buried under as much as six metres of mud and were searching for the nine people still missing, Nganjuk district chief Novi Rahman Hidayat said.

Heavy equipment arrived later to help in the search.

Overnight rains caused rivers to burst their banks in other districts of the province on Monday, sending nearly a metre of muddy water into some residential areas and forcing hundreds of people to flee from their submerged homes, Mr Jati said.

At least nine people have died and 10 are missing after a landslide in Indonesia, with hundreds forced to flee their flooded homeshttps://t.co/r39KIJKNva

— TRT World (@trtworld) February 15, 2021

-AAP