More than 72 hours after the landslide hit the small village of Al-Dhafeer on a rocky hillside west of the capital Sanaa on Thursday, eight survivors have been recovered from the rubble but 34 people remain missing.

"Rescuers are still trying to find survivors among the 34 people reported missing and who are believed to still be under the rubble... even if the chance of finding them alive is diminishing," the official Saba news agency said.

Rescuers were using tractors and small earthmovers to clear the rubble and some people used their hands to search for survivors.

As many as 25 out of the village's 31 houses were destroyed, buried under huge piles of rocks.

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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