BEIJING, Aug. 11 -- An unknown number of people are missing under debris after a landslide in east China's Zhejiang province caused several apartment buildings to collapse Monday night.

    At least six apartment buildings at the foot of a mountain collapsed at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday in Wenzhou City of Zhejiang Province

    Rescuers have pulled six people alive from the debris, however, the exact number still missing is not known.

    Soundbite: Wenzhou City resident "My legs were firmly buried in the dust and I could not pull them out. then, I managed to push away some bricks and used a long stick to knock at my legs. Finally, I managed to creep out and was carried out by others."

    Rescuers say the huge amount of mud and rock is making it hard for them to find the missing.

    Soundbite: Wenzhou City resident "I heard some disturbing noise,very loud. I was on the third floor, while my wife was on the second floor. Then, I ran down to the second floor to call my wife to escape from the house. But, unfortunately, the house collapsed before we managed to escape, and my wife was buried in the dust."

    Two bodies have been found at the site.

    The landslide was triggered by days of continuous torrential rain from Typhoon Morakot. The meteorological station in Wenzhou's Taishun County recorded 1,241 millimeters or almost 49 inches of rain from August 6 to 10. That is the heaviest typhoon-induced rainfall observed by a single meteorological station in Zhejiang in six decades.

    More than 8.8 million people in the provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Anhui have been impacted.

    Of those, the Ministry of Civil Affairs says authorities have had to relocate 1.4 million people from their homes as a result of flooding.

    More than 6,000 houses were toppled by the storm, and some 387,300 hectares of cropland are flooded. Direct economic losses are estimated to amount to 9 billion yuan or 1.3 billion U.S. dollars.

    Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Wenzhou. (XHTV)