Rescue workers in India battled difficult terrain and bad weather yesterday as they searched for more than 100 people feared trapped in a landslide that killed at least 16 villagers after incessant rain soaked a mountain slope, officials said.

A wave of extreme heat, wildfires, torrential rain and flooding has wreaked havoc around the world in recent days, raising new fears about the pace of climate change.

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The land collapsed in the middle of the night in the remote mountain hamlet of Irshalwadi, in the western state of Maharashtra, about 60 km (37 miles) from Mumbai, officials said.

Sixteen bodies had been recovered and more than 80 people had been rescued.

It was estimated that at least 225 people lived in the hamlet, the state's deputy chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, told the state assembly. More than 100 of them were feared trapped in the debris.

Rescue workers are having to trek in with their equipment for almost two hours to reach the landslide, some accompanied by sniffer dogs.

They then have to labour in heavy rain and fog, occassionally dodging big boulders tumbling down the slope, in their search for survivors nearly 12 hours after the disaster, a Reuters witness and media reported.

"The debris at some of the places is 10 to 29 feet deep," S B Singh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force, told the Indian Express newspaper.

"It is difficult to bring in heavy machinery to this place," he said.