Hundreds have been evacuated from around Jemblung village in the Banjarnegara regency of central Java, about 450km from the capital, Jakarta, where media pictures showed a flood of orange mud and water cascading down a wooded mountainside after Friday's disaster (local time).
Mudslides are common in Indonesia during the monsoon season, which usually runs from October until April. Large swathes of forest land, power lines and houses were buried.
Hampering the rescue effort was a lack of a telephone signal and earth-moving equipment in the isolated, rural area.
"There was a roaring sound like thunder," Imam, who lives in a neighbouring village, told television. "Then I saw trees were flying and then the landslides. People here also panicked and fled."
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said 17 people had been killed, 15 rescued, 91 were missing and 423 people from the surrounding areas had been taken to temporary shelters.
He said there was a history of similar disasters in the area.
Eleven of the 15 rescued were receiving hospital treatment, he said. A government agency official added that the rescue effort had been suspended as light faded and would resume on Sunday.
Five of the dead were found in one car, television reported. It showed rescuers using bamboo stretchers to carry bodies away.
"Jemblung village was the most affected," Nugroho said. "The challenge is that the evacuation route is also damaged by the landslide."
A rescue team of about 400 people, which included police, military and local volunteers, used their bare hands and makeshift tools to search for people and clear the area.
A second resident said there had been no warnings of the likelihood of a landslide.
