Over 700 people are dead in a massive landslide in north-west China – one of the deadliest incidents so far in the country's worst flooding in decades.

A frantic search is starting for more than 1,000 missing people.

Buildings were slammed with a wall of mud that buildings seven stories high crumpled like paper in Gansu province.

Rescuers are still searching by hand in the remote and mountainous area.

A man, 52, was pulled from the rubble still breathing after being trapped for 50 hours. Other rescue teams say thay have heard “very faint' signs of life.

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has urged rescuers to keep looking until they find all of the survivors.

As time moves on, hopes of finding people alive dwindle.

"Around me are relatives of missing people sitting dazed, shocked. Each of them has stories," our correspondent says.

One woman has lost her husband and three teenage kids. She only believed it when she saw their bodies with her own eyes.

The death tolls have been revised since Tuesday at 337, and officials are expecting the number to keep growing.

The forecast for the coming days is heavy rain, which could stall out some humanitarian work, and there is the further possibility of more landslides.

The landslides in the remote Zhouqu county, Gansu, were sparked by heavy rains that hit the area late on Saturday.

The thick sludge levelled an area about 3 miles by 500m, Xinhua said.

The debris from the landslide blocked a river that then burst its banks, shooting water, rocks and mud down hillsides and into homes.

Soldiers have been bombing through the blockage on the Bailong river, taking the water level down of an unstable lake created by the landslide.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from towns and villages that could be engulfed if the damn breaks.

China had been struggling with its worst flooding in a decade when the landslide hit and more than 2,100 people have been reported dead or missing and millions are displaced.

President Hu Jintao led a meeting of senior ministers on Tuesday on ideas to handle the crisis, Xinhua news said.

Over 7,000 soldiers, medical staff and firefighters are now at the scene of the accident.

The Chinese premier has been to Zhouqu, pushing rescue workers on their efforts and comforting the affected.

Tents, food and water have been sent by authorities, but supplies are running low because roads and bridges in the area have been knocked out.