The death toll from two landslides in southern Ethiopia has risen to 157, an Ethiopian government official said on Tuesday, without ruling out that the number could rise, Reuters reported.

A landslide buried people in the Gofa region of southern Ethiopia and a second landslide buried others trying to rescue survivors on Monday morning, officials said.

Marcus Melesse, head of the National Disaster Management Agency in the Gufa region, said the search operation was still ongoing and that there were bodies that had not yet been recovered due to the difficulty of the area.

The Gufa administrative region is about 450 kilometres from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.