"Until this digging now, voices had still been heard from inside the vehicle," said Baharuddin, government chief of Pasaman district where the accident happened at about 6:00 pm Friday.

He said it was unclear whether the seven were still alive.

Police Second Inspector Suwardi told AFP Saturday night that the death toll had risen to 38 after one passenger died during hospital treatment.

A nurse at the hospital in Lubuksikaping, the district capital, told AFP there were 41 dead.

"This is the latest information," the emergency room nurse, Gafarli said. But police in Pasaman said the toll was not that high.

"It is totally buried, completely invisible," said Muhammad Zaini, the Pasaman police chief. "The passengers inside had no chance to run or get out of that bus."

Police, soldiers and residents worked under mostly clear skies Saturday to try to free those believed still trapped, another police officer, Satria Dinata, said.

Five passengers, most with broken bones, were being cared for at the Lubuksikaping hospital. One other patient died during treatment there, Gafarli said.

He said most of the dead were taken to hospital in Panti town near the scene. The hospital could not be reached by telephone.

Weeping relatives of about 10 dead passengers arrived at the offices of the ALS inter-city bus company in Medan, the North Sumatra capital where the bus was headed, a company official told AFP. He declined to be identified.

Zaini said rescuers using a bulldozer to help clear debris had to work extremely carefully to avoid dislodging rocks above them.

Damage was worse toward the front of the bus but four people at the back escaped by breaking the rear window, he said.

Police said the accident happened when the landslide triggered by rains crashed down into a mountain road near the boundary of West and North Sumatra provinces.

Suwardi told AFP a piece of wood had become lodged in the wheels of the bus, which carried 57 people.

Baharuddin said the landslide was "a natural event. It wasn't caused by destruction of the forest, no."

Deadly landslides are relatively frequent in Indonesia and officials have cited deforestation as a contributing factor.

Environmental activist Longgena Ginting has said 85 percent of natural disasters in Indonesia are the result of ecological destruction including illegal logging.

At least 12 people died Wednesday when a landslide buried homes in a village in Indonesia's West Java province.

TERRA.WIRE