A landslide triggered by heavy rain killed at least 24 people in China's mountainous southwestern province of Sichuan on Tuesday, state media reported.

Extreme weather this summer has triggered a series of landslides and floods across the country, leaving scores dead and tens of thousands displaced.

The latest disaster hit a village in Puge county at around 6 am, the official Xinhua news agency said, adding that four others were injured and one person remained missing.

As of late Tuesday afternoon, authorities estimated that 71 houses and five kilometers of roads had been destroyed, the Sichuan government information office said in a social media post.

Photos showed rescue workers digging with hoes through sticky brown mud, their bodies caked and splattered, and women in colorful headwraps typical of the Yi ethnic minority watxching the rescue from a destroyed hillside. 

One image showed hard-hatted men in bright orange jumpsuits holding an IV drip aloft as they carried a man through a muddy cornfield on a stretcher. 

Landslides are a frequent danger in rural and mountainous parts of China, particularly after heavy rain.

A massive landslide in June killed at least 10 people and buried dozens of homes in a village in Sichuan after rains brought down a mountainside.

In July 63 people were killed by landslides and floods in the central province of Hunan. Some 1.6 million people were forced from their homes.

Source: AFP