BOGOTA (REUTERS) - At least 14 people have been killed and five injured in a landslide in the southwestern Colombian province of Cauca, the country's disaster relief agency said on Sunday (April 21).

The landslide, which was caused by heavy rains, took place in the early hours of the morning in a rural area of Rosas municipality, the agency said in a statement.

Five people have been hospitalised and rescue operations are ongoing, the statement said. At least eight houses have been damaged and a portion of the Pan-American Highway is blocked because of the landslide, it added.

Landslides are common in mountainous Colombia, especially during rainy season and in areas where precarious informal housing and narrow roadways are constructed on deforested Andean hillsides.