Mudslide

Rising water levels caused mudslides which swept away homes in Quetame, a municipality south-east of the capital, Bogotá.

Rescue workers are searching for at least a dozen people who have been reported missing.

A bridge linking Bogotá with the city of Villavicencio has been destroyed.

Among those killed are three children aged 12, 10 and six, rescue workers said.

The 12-year-old was swept away by a mudslide along with his mother, newspaper El Tiempo reports.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro expressed his condolences on Twitter.

Rotman Perez, secretary of criminal policy at the Public Ministry, said officials will seek to find out which officials gave authorization for the construction and determine their degree of responsibility.

Meanwhile, officials were weighing what to do with the site of the acres-wide mudslide believed to hold hundreds of bodies, as well as a surrounding area of largely untouched homes declared uninhabitable.

The mudslide occurred in Joumol, a village in Manipur state close to India's border with Myanmar, said police officer Herojit Singh.

Police reinforcements were finding it difficult to reach the area which has been cut off by road because of heavy rains over the past three days, Singh said.

He said that the rescuers would use helicopters to land in the area on Sunday after day-break.