The team probing the cause of a landslide in Southwest China's Yunnan province has refuted accusations from local villages' that they are taking bribes from the government.

The landslide occurred in Zhenxiong county on Jan 11, killing 46 people.

Jiang Xingwu, head of the investigation team dispatched from the provincial government, said the landslide was a natural disaster caused by loose soil and continuous rainstorms, according to a Beijing News report on Wednesday.

However, some local villagers believed that the landslide was caused by explosion at the nearby coal mine, and 72 villagers signed their names to a petition calling for the cause of the disaster to be re-examined.

Some villagers accused the investigation team of accepting bribes from the county government, but Jiang denied the accusation, said the report.

Jiang said the investigation team has been to the landslide location twice and were reassured that the landslide was a natural disaster.

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