BEIJING - A landslide in northern China has buried about 20 people from one village, though two people have already been pulled out alive, a government official said on Monday.

The massive landslide hit in Zhongyang county in Shanxi province in the late morning, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters that they were checking exactly how many people were missing, and that a rescue mission was underway.

He said they had no confirmed death reports yet.

In September of last year, a mudslide triggered by dammed up tailings from an iron ore mine killed over 250 people in the same province.

Shanxi, along with much of northern China, has been hit by unseasonably early and heavy snow and bitterly cold weather over the past few days.

(Reporting by Huang Yan and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

China