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Many injured were being taken to hospital in the nearby town of Tipuani, but it was impossible to give an initial estimate as to the number of victims as everything had been submerged by the landslide, said Jose Plata, head of a mining cooperative in the region.
The town's mayor, Arnuflo Robles, who was in La Paz at the time of the landslide, said he had received reports that 400 homes had been destroyed.
About 40 rescuers were on their way from La Paz to Chima, a road trip that can take as much as 15 hours.
An isolated gold mining town, Chima is located 250 kilometers (160 miles) north of la Paz, and is only accessible through a narrow, treacherous mountain road.
Telephones were cut and residents used radio to communicate with the capital.
Bolivia's government declared Chima a disaster area, Defense Minister Freddy Teodovich said, even as officials scrambled to assess the damage.
"We don't know the real scale" of the disaster, he said.
Chima is so small that most maps don't show it. The town sits on the side of a hill in a subtropical region, which was hard hit by heavy rains late last week.
The hillside is pocked with the diggings of small-scale gold panners, leaving it especially prone to landslides.
The Bolivian office of the UN's World Food Program (WFP) sent 5.5 tonnes of food to meet the immediate needs of victims.
Five years ago, a landslide destroyed 50 homes in Bolivia in a similar tragedy.
SPACE.WIRE |