Steven Malinga, Uganda's minister for disaster relief, said moving people to safer areas was a priority.However, he said many people were refusing to move, as the villages near Mount Elgon had fertile ground and fewer instances of malaria.

In March 2010, thousands were forced to flee after after a landslide killed more than 350 people in Uganda's eastern Bududa district.

"At 2pm, the ground trembled, followed by heavy rumbling of soil and stones which covered our home," Rachael Namwono, a villager in Bududa district, told Uganda's private Monitor newspaper.

A Red Cross team is in the area to assess the damage and loss of life.

"The total number at risk in this buried area is 448, so far nobody has been retrieved," Red Cross officer Michael Nataka told the Reuters news agency.

He said that there was a need to force people to move from the mountain sides as they tended not to heed the advice that the area is dangerous.

"The Mount Elgon area has had so many places with cracks, so each time there is rainfall for a while, this water just seeps into these cracks and then eventually the landslide happens," Mr Nataka said.

"There is need for some level of enforcement."

Mr Malinga agreed it might have to come to this.

"Eventually we have to pass a law to move people from the top and the sides of the mountain, and find alternative communities where we can relocate them," the minister told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

He urged people to move to camps lower down the mountain, where they would be given food, containers for water and utensils.

The minister said he also expected the death toll to rise as mud was removed from the affected area, although he said moving the mud had so far proved difficult.

The area has experienced heavy rain for a number of days before the landslide on Monday.

Last August, at least 24 people were killed when mud washed away homes in the Bulambuli district of eastern Uganda.