BUNIA: The death toll from a landslide that swept over a fishing village on the banks of a lake in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reached 140, the government said Monday, reports AFP.

"We estimate that there at least a hundred bodies buried underneath the rumble of large rocks that fell on the 48 destroyed homes," the deputy governor of Ituri Province, Pacifique Keta, told AFP.

The landslide occurred last Wednesday in the northeast village of Tora on the banks of Lake Albert when part of a mountain engulfed a fishing camp after heavy rains.

At the time, the government said 40 people had died. Keta said authorities have decided to suspend the search for bodies to "prioritise the disinfection of the area" -- a measure designed to prevent the spreading of possible diseases to nearby fishing villages.