At least 229 people have died in mudslides in southern Ethiopia's Gofa Zone, authorities said Tuesday.

The mudslides in the area followed heavy rains in the region. The first slide happened late Sunday. Family, friends and neighbors mounted an immediate rescue operation.

As the rescue operation continued Monday morning, with many people using their bare hands to find victims, another slide erupted, burying many of the would-be rescuers.

"The death toll surged after the people who came to rescue also got trapped," said Gofa district administrator Misikir Mitiku. "It is a very sad incident."

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement he was "deeply saddened by this terrible loss" in Gofa and that a federal disaster prevention task force had been sent to the location.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is Ethiopian, said his agency also has dispatched a team to the site.

About 300 people from nearby villages had run to rescue their neighbors after the first mudslide, Habtamu Fetena, the leader of the local government's emergency response, told The New York Times.

Fetena estimated just 20 people were able to successfully escape the second slide.

"They had no clue that the land they were standing on was about to swallow them," he told the Times.

"There are children who are hugging corpses, having lost their entire family, including mother, father, brother and sister," Markos Melese, director of the disaster response agency in Gofa Zone, told The Associated Press.