La Paz governor Mateo Laura said he could not offer a specific toll, but that local residents believe 200-300 people had lost their lives after tonnes of rocks and earth sent sliding down Andean foothills by heavy rains entombed one third of their town in a valley north of the Andean country's capital.

The landslide crashed onto the remote gold-diggers' town early Monday after driving rain on Sunday, virtually cutting off communications with the outside world in the town settled mostly by indigenous Aymara migrant families.

The town looked desolate early Tuesday after the earth that rumbled down a 300 meter hill gave no time to residents, many of them small children, time to flee what locals called the worst disaster in memory here.

About 40 rescuers and earth moving machinery sent from La Paz, 250 kilometers (160 miles) away, arrived Tuesday morning to help in the grim search.

But steep roadways and bad weather hampered rescuers' efforts, as authorities in South America's poorest country tried to rush in humanitarian aid.

By 1745 GMT Tuesday, just one lone fire truck had been able to arrive on the scene, after skirting smaller landslides on its way here.

The remains of five adults are on view at the local public school, plucked out of the rubble by family mambers.

In the capital, presidential spokesman Mauricio Antezana earlier said there were seven confirmed dead and a similar number of injured.

Authorities said that weather permitting they would also send a helicopter, while a Hercules C130 transport plane loaded with emergency food supplies and equipment would land at a nearby airstrip.

The landslide only became known on Monday when residents managed to make radio contact with the capital to request assistance. Many injured were taken to hospital in the nearby town of Tipuani.

Located in Bolivia's subtropical lowlands, Chima had a population of about 3,000 before the landslide and is so small that most maps do not show it. The town sits on the side of a hill which was hard hit by heavy rains late last week.

Heavy rain has been drenching the region since the end of last week, and apparently caused a hillside to come crashing down onto the town.

The hill is pocked with excavations made by small-scale gold diggers, leaving it especially prone to landslides.

The Bolivian office of the UN World Food Program (WFP) pledged 5.5 tonnes of food for the victims.

Five years ago, a landslide destroyed 50 homes in Bolivia in a similar tragedy.

SPACE.WIRE