Landslides leave thousands homeless in Andes

Scores of people are feared dead and thousands have been left homeless after landslides swept away villages in Colombia and Venezuela.

An emergency management official in Medellin, Colombia, said sniffer dogs were trying to find bodies trapped under mud and rubble.

"It was a mass landslide that buried more than 50 homes approximately and we are talking about 40 or 50 people possibly being underneath the rubble," he said.

President Juan Manuel Santos, during a tour of the region, said he was considering declaring a state of emergency.

Landslides are common in Colombia's Andes mountains and the rain, especially heavy this season, have killed at least 176 people this year, the Red Cross said. In Venezuela's northern states of Miranda, Vargas and Falcon, at least 34 people died and about 90,000 people have taken refuge at hundreds of shelters.

President Hugo Chavez said he would force privately-owned hotels to shelter the homeless.

"We will occupy them under lease," he said, adding that wealthy Venezuelans have done little to help.

"You people from the upper class should have already offered your golf courses to set up tents" for those driven from their homes, he said.