Seventeen children and 13 women were among the victims of Sunday's mudslide in the village of Kara-Teguit in the ex-Soviet republic's southwestern province of Osh, Anarkul Aitaliyev said.

"This was the result of seven days' heavy rain," Aitaliyev told journalists.

Some 100 survivors were made homeless as nearly 30 houses were swept away or destroyed, Aitaliyev added.

Five bodies have been recovered so far, he said.

Three days ahead of the landslide, emergency officials had visited villagers warning them to leave, but many had been reluctant to do so, fearing losing their farm animals, Aitaliyev said.

A landslide in the same place on Saturday did not claim any lives.

The site is no stranger to natural disaster as 90 people were killed in a landslide there in 1994, Aitaliyev said.

Sunday's disaster came as NATO countries prepare to lead a major landslide and earthquake response training exercise in the nearby Ferghana valley in neighbouring Uzbekistan at the end of this month.

SPACE.WIRE