P. G. Sekara, 52, a resident of one of the hillside villages, said the house had belonged to his sister. She survived, he said, because she had heard the rumbling in time and had run to safety.

Behind the house, rescuers were digging in the mud, searching for three people who had last been seen in that area before the landslide. A rice paddy and the canal, which ran through the valley, had disappeared under the mud, residents said.

Mr. Sekara and other residents said they had lost hope that anyone else would be found alive. “There’s no point in them going back looking for survivors,” he said. “You’d have to look 40 feet under the mud to find people.”

President Maithripala Sirisena toured the area on Wednesday, declaring on Twitter after the visit, “The loss is devastating.”

More than 1,000 people, displaced by the slides or fearful of returning until the rains subside, were being housed at four temporary camps. At one of those, in the village of Hathgampola, where 113 families were sheltering, survivors told of narrow escapes as the mountain gave way.

Dingiri Mahattaya, 63, said that she, her daughter and her son ran for their lives once they realized what was happening. “Big rocks started to roll down the hill with a fierce sound,” she said. “Some of the rocks hit the walls and windows of the house. We opened the front door and ran through the rice paddy to safety.”

She said she did not know when they would be able to return. “They tell me that my house is now filled with water and mud,” she said, “and the walls have collapsed.”