Hundreds of rescue workers attended (Picture: Imaginechina/REX/Shutterstock)

More than 120 have been buried alive after a landslide hit a village in southwestern China, officials said.

Fifteen people have been confirmed dead after 62 homes and a hotel in the village of Xinmo in Mao County were buried by the landslide, which came from a mountain at around 6am.

The Sichuan provincial government said one mile (1.6km) of road was buried in the disaster.

Mao County, or Maoxian, sits on the eastern margin of the Tibetan plateau and is home to about 110,000 people.

A three-month-old baby was rescued (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

The landslide was compared to the Wenchuan earthquake, the deadliest earthquake to hit China this century.

In May 2008 90,000 people died in the Sichuan province, when a magnitude 7.9 temblor struck it.

‘It’s the biggest landslide to hit this area since the Wenchuan earthquake,’ Wang Yongbo, an official leading one of the rescue efforts, told state broadcaster China Central Television.

According to the provincial government, more than 120 people were buried by this morning’s landslide.

CCTV also cited a rescuer who said five more bodies had been found.

Rain is believed to have caused the landslide (Picture: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock)

Rescuers managed to pull out three people, who of whom survived, according to the official Sichuan Daily Newspaper.

Another family of three, which included a three-month-old baby, also managed to escape as debris began to hit their house.

Qiao Dashuai told CCTV the baby’s crying had woken the family up and alerted him to the landslide.

Mr Dashuai, who believes the baby saved his family’s life, said: ‘We heard a strange noise at the back of our house, and it was rather loud.

‘Wind was coming into the room so I wanted to close the door. When we came out, water flow swept us away instantly.’

Doctors examine a survivor Picture: Zhong Xin/CHINA NEWS SERVICE/VCG via Getty)

The trio then struggled against the flood of water until they met medical workers who took them to a hospital.

Mr Dashuai said his parents and other relatives had not been found.

An estimated 8 million cubic meters (282 million cubic feet) of earth and rock – equivalent to more than 3,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools slid down the mountain during the landslide, according to the government’s website.

Experts told CCTV that the disaster was likely triggered by rain.

Search and rescue efforts involved more than 400 workers, including police.

Two dozen sniffer dogs were also sent to the scene.

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