KUNMING - Three people have been confirmed dead after their bodies were dug out from the debris of a landslide which buried a section of a road in southwest China's Yunnan Province Saturday evening, local authorities said on Sunday.

The accident happened around 7 p.m. at a village in Funing County. As of 8:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, eight people are still unaccounted for after government workers visited households in several villages, according to the county's publicity office.

Witnesses said they saw people passing by the road when the disaster occurred. The landslide site is about 32 km away from the county seat.

More than 200 rescuers, along with 11 excavators and four sniffer dogs, are searching for the missing people in the debris.