Seven people died and another 20 were left missing by a landslide in China, state media reported Thursday.

The landslide engulfed a village near Fuquan city in the southwestern province of Guizhou, the Xinhua news agency said.

Torrential rain complicated the rescue work, it said. Pictures showed emergency personnel levering up slabs of tiled wall.

A total of 77 houses collapsed or were buried in the disaster, Xinhua said, with seven people confirmed dead and another 20 missing.

Guizhou is one of the poorest provinces in China, and renowned for its hilly topography and wet weather.

Mining is one of its key industries but soil erosion is among the worst in China, with around 42 percent of the province affected, according to an official national survey in 2009.

Guizhou neighbours Yunnan, which was hit by a 6.1-magnitude earthquake earlier this month that killed more than 600 people.