A landslide caused by flooding in central China's Hunan province destroyed a guesthouse and killed 12 people on Sunday, state media reported.
Official broadcaster CCTV said it had "been initially confirmed that 18 people were buried".
Twelve bodies and six injured survivors had been recovered by Sunday evening, the official Xinhua news agency said.
One person had been missing before the 12th body was found.
The landslide was caused by flash flooding on a mountain, which destroyed the guesthouse, according to CCTV.
More than 240 emergency personnel had been sent to the scene.
A video published by the state-run Beijing Youth Daily showed a swath of mud and debris cutting through a green hillside and an uprooted tree lying in front of a three-storey building.
An aerial video on Xinhua showed what appeared to be the ruined bottom half of a building at the top of the debris trail, as well as damaged buildings at the foot of the hill.
China has suffered a summer of extreme weather, with flash floods in the north and southwest killing at least 20 people this month.
A highway in southern China collapsed in May after days of rain, killing 48 people.
Scientists say climate change is making extreme weather more frequent and intense, and China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Long dependent on polluting energy sources such as coal, Beijing has pledged to bring emissions of planet-heating carbon dioxide to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060.
It is already the world's largest producer of renewable energy, with research this month showing China is building almost twice as much solar and wind power capacity as the rest of the world combined.
