Three members of the same family died following a downpour-prompted landslide in the south-central Vietnamese province of Khanh Hoa, home to the beach resort city of Nha Trang, in the early hours of Sunday.

Two landslides occurred in Khanh Thanh Nam Village in Suoi Cat Commune, Cam Lam District, when a mass of earth and rock came rushing down the mountainside on early Sunday, burying a newly-built house and its next-door neighbor.

The owner of the first house had sensed some unusual sounds just before the disaster took place and managed to timely ask his wife and children to flee to safety, whereas the next-door house with all three members inside were buried in earth and rubble.

When neighbors were rushing to rescue the three victims from their collapsed house, another huge batch of earth continued to fall down from the same mountain, according to Suoi Cat police.

The rescuers were quick enough to run away but the three family members under the rubble continued to be buried.

The victims were all female, one of them an 11-month-old. Their bodies were plucked from the mud later on Sunday, police said.

Suoi Cat is some 26km southwest of Nha Trang.

The location of the deadly landslide (red marker) in Khanh Hoa Province, south-central Vietnam, is seen in this Google Maps screenshot.

Khanh Thanh Nam has faced no landslides for several decades, and Sunday’s disaster struck even though no intrusive construction had been done in the village, according to Le Duc Vinh, chairman of the Khanh Hoa administration.

This is the second time a deadly landslide has hit the province in just over a month, following the one that killed 18 in Nha Trang in late November.

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