Almost 150 people were believed to have died under hundreds of tonnes of garbage and earth when heavy seasonal rain unleashed a massive landslide in Indonesia on Monday, police said. The landslide struck in the early hours when people were asleep and flattened up to 70 homes built in the shadow of a dumpsite at Camilla, near Banding, around 200 kilometres south-east of Jakarta. Whole houses and trees lay buried under tonnes of earth and rubbish, with splintered rafters poking through the mass of earth and smashed roof tiles and wooden beams littering the area.

As many as 1,000 rescuers in search teams from the military, police and local residents desperately scoured the site, picking though piles of brick and rubble in the forlorn hope of digging anyone out alive.

The search was suspended due to lack of light after sunset and was due to resume at dawn, officials said.

Police Commissioner Susiyanti told AFP that 17 bodies had so far been pulled from the rubble and a further 129 were missing and believed buried under the mountain of garbage.

"It appears that all of them are buried and it is very likely that they are all dead," Susiyanti said.

Another resident, Rohimin, 42, said he feared that because there were always scavengers in the tip, the true toll could end up being closer to 200.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005