Guwahati: At least 16 individuals have been killed and many remain missing after a landslide buried a campsite in Malaysia’s Selangor state, officials say.
A landslide occurred at the farm stay in Batang Kali municipality at 03:00 Friday (19:00 GMT Thursday) as campers were sleeping in their tents.
Over 90 people, including children, had camped at the base.
On Friday morning, hundreds of rescuers waded through mud in search of survivors.
The landslide began more than 30 metres (100 feet) above the campsite and rolled through an acre of land.
Images uploaded online by Malaysian rescue agencies showed helmeted personnel scrambling over uneven ground, past uprooted trees and other debris.
Authorities had rescued more than 60 people by Friday afternoon, but 17 were remained missing, they added.
Teh Lynn Xuan, a camper, said she and her mother survived, but her brother died and another brother was transported to the hospital with injuries.
“We felt the tents becoming unstable and soil was falling around us,” she told Malaysian newspaper Berita Harian.
“My mother and I managed to crawl out and save ourselves.”
She’d gone camping with a large party of over 40 people.
Following visits from numerous other government ministers, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was scheduled to be at the site later on Friday.
On his Facebook page, he expressed his sympathies to the victims and prayed for more survivors.
The cause of the landslide, which occurred in a forested hilly terrain next to the side of the road in Batang Kali, close to the holidaying Genting Highland region and around 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Kuala Lumpur, is unknown.
Locals reported light rain but no big downpours or tremors in the days leading up to it.
Authorities also ordered the evacuation of all riverbank campgrounds and other high-risk places for the next seven days on Friday afternoon.