Efforts are under way to rescue people trapped beneath the rubble, BBC reported Monday.

The British news service said rescuers used heavy machines to help remove the debris while townspeople scooped rubble by hand, trying to get to survivors from Saturday's rockslide.

At least eight boulders -- some estimated to weigh about 70 tons -- fell from the cliffs of the Muqattam onto Duwayqa district.

A six-story building below the Muqattam hills was destroyed, residents said.

"The power went out, we heard a loud bang like an earthquake and I thought this house had collapsed. I went out, I saw the whole mountain had collapsed," Hassan Ibrahim Hassan, 80, whose house escaped the destruction, told the BBC.