At least nine dead & 47 buried in landslide that struck as families slept in China sparking desperate rescue effort

AT least nine people have died while 47 have been buried alive after a massive landslide struck a mountainous village in China.

The tragedy happened in Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan province around 6 am local time and forced the evacuation of 200 amid freezing temperatures.

Officials said rescue efforts were underway to find victims buried in 18 separate houses while so far nine bodies have been pulled from the rubble.

Authorities have launched an emergency response while 200 people were "urgently evacuated."

Footage shows emergency workers in orange jumpsuits and helmets forming ranks outside a fire station.

Luo Dongmei, 35, was sleeping when the landslide struck, but she survived and was relocated to a school building by local authorities.

"I was asleep, but my brother knocked on the door and woke me up.

"They said there was a landslide and the bed was shaking, so they rushed upstairs and woke us up," Luo said.

Luo, her husband and their three children, along with many other residents, have been provided with food at the school but are still waiting for blankets and other protection from the cold weather, she said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping urged "all-out" rescue efforts, CCTV reported.

Xi "demanded that rescue forces are organised quickly... and efforts made to reduce casualties as far as possible," the broadcaster reported him as saying.

He added that it was "necessary to properly handle the work of comforting the families of the deceased and resettling affected people".

Efforts to establish what happened are underway, Xinhua reported.

China has experienced a string of natural disasters in recent months, some following extreme weather events such as sudden, heavy downpours.

Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote skiing area in northwestern China where dozens of avalanches triggered by heavy snow had trapped more than 1,000 people for a week.

The avalanches blocked roads, stranding both tourists and residents in a village in Altay prefecture in the Xinjiang region, close to China's border with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.

In September, rainstorms in the southern region of Guangxi triggered a mountain landslide that killed at least seven people, according to media reports.

Heavy rains sparked a similar disaster near the northern city of Xi'an in August, causing the deaths of more than 20 people.

And in June, a landslide in southwestern Sichuan province killed 19 people.