A massive landslide in administrative capital Putrajaya today forced the evacuation of at least 1,000 residents and buried 23 cars, police said.

Tonnes of earth tumbled down a hill 10 metres behind an apartment complex of three 15-storey blocks early Thursday, forcing residents to flee, police said.

"Nobody is buried alive or trapped under the rubble," acting Putrajaya police chief Abdul Razak Abdul Majid was quoted as saying by the Bernama news agency.

Fire and rescue teams checking the landslide site using motion detectors had not found anyone buried in the mud, Bernama said.

Abdul Razak said the residents were sheltering at a nearby community centre and school.

"We are waiting for engineers from the Public Works Institute to confirm whether there will be further earth movements in the area," he said.

"Only then will a decision be made whether to allow the residents to return to their apartment units."

Heavy rains

The landslides follow heavy rains overnight in Putrajaya.

Heavy rains earlier this week also forced the evacuation of over 600 residents Wednesday from Shah Alam, a large suburb southwest of capital Kuala Lumpur.

Landslides are common in Malaysia, where housing developments are often built on or next to hilly areas.

In May last year, four people were killed and 43 homes destroyed in a landslide in a hilly area of the capital's north-eastern suburbs after unusually heavy rains.

In 1993 a landslide triggered by heavy rains caused the nearby 12-storey Highland Towers condominium to collapse, killing 48 people - mostly children and maids who were left at home while parents were at work.