Dozens of people have been killed in Southeast Asia as the rainy season unleashes landslides.

At least 18 people have been killed in Indonesia over the past week, authorities said on Monday. In Vietnam, six people were killed late on Sunday when a bus was swept off a road in the centre of the country.

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The deaths in Indonesia happened in two regions in Central Java province.

A landslide in the city of Cilacap buried a dozen houses in Cibeunying village, the disaster mitigation agency said.

Search and rescue efforts have been challenging, it noted, with victims buried in mud 3m to 8m (10ft to 25ft) deep.

Authorities have counted at least 16 people killed while another seven are missing, said M Abdullah, head of the local division of the search and rescue agency.

Excavators were deployed to dig through dirt, footage from news channel KompasTV showed on Monday.

Separately, two people died and 27 were missing after a landslide on Saturday in the region of Banjarnegara, the disaster mitigation agency said, with up to 30 houses damaged.

Increasingly destructive and frequent

In Vietnam, a landslide buried a passenger bus on a treacherous mountain pass. Six people are reported to have been killed with 19 injured, according to state media.

The bus carrying 32 people was en route from Da Lat to Nha Trang when the incident happened, reports said.

The landslide on Khanh Le Pass, triggered by heavy rain, crushed the front of the bus, trapping many passengers.

Rescuers struggled for hours to reach the scene as heavy rain also caused landslides on both sides of the pass, cutting off access.

Vietnam and Indonesia are among the world’s most flood-prone countries with nearly half their populations living in high-risk areas.

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Scientists warn that a warming climate is making the rainy season, which runs from October to March across parts of Southeast Asia, more hazardous as the length and severity of the season are affected.

Storm patterns are being altered, leading to heavier rain, flash flooding, stronger wind gusts, and increasingly destructive and frequent landslides.

Vietnam was hit hard earlier this month by Typhoon Kalmaegi. The storm had earlier torn through the Philippines, killing at least 188 people.

In Indonesia, flash floods and landslides in a remote area of the eastern Papua region killed at least 15 people and left eight missing in early November.

In January, more than 20 residents were killed after being swept away in floods and landslides when torrential rains hit Indonesia’s Central Java province.