The landslide hit the small village of al-Dhafeer, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Sanaa, destroying 15 out the village's 27 houses, the offical said, requesting anonymity.

He said 30 corpses had been recovered from the rubble so far.

It was not immediately clear what caused the landslide. Yemen's seismology centre had no word of an earthquake and there were no reports of severe weather.

Despite its proximity to oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Yemen is one of the world's poorest countries with a per capita gross domestic product of just 800 dollars.

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