"The children were playing under a steep slope when the landslide occurred on Friday," disaster management agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

Nugroho said that one of the children who died was seven years old, while the other three were ten years old.

"The landslide was triggered by heavy rainfall," he said.

At least 148 people were killed when flash floods smashed through Teluk Wondama district in Papua late last year.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011