At least 14 people have died in landslides on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi following torrential rain. Another person is still missing, said a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority.

It is still the rainy season in Sulawesi, and higher sea surface temperatures are conducive to extreme weather in many areas of Indonesia.

The Tana Toraja district in the Sulawesi Selatan province in the southern part of the island was particularly affected, spokesman Abdul Muhari said. There, four houses were buried by the masses of earth and two villagers were injured when heavy rains dissolved unstable ground in the region late on Saturday evening just before midnight.

Rescue workers continued to search for the missing villager in the hilly village of South Makale. However, the lack of electricity and the heavy rains that continued to fall across the region hampered the work. The landslides also blocked roads to remote villages in the highlands of Tana Toraja.