JAKARTA, Jan 15 (Reuters) - The death toll from a landslide on a remote Indonesian island last week has risen to 24 after eight bodies were found buried under mud, a health department official said Monday.

Ten people are still missing following the landslide on Sangihe island late on Thursday, said Christian Tilla, chief of the health department of North Sulawesi province.

Sangihe is 2,200 km (1,400 miles) northeast of Jakarta in the seas between North Sulawesi province and Mindanao, a southern island of the Philippines.

Officials had earlier said that 16 people were killed in the landslide triggered by heavy rains.

Efforts to reach aid to some 4,000 displaced people have been hampered by heavy rains in the area, Tilla said. The survivors needed food and some were sick, he said.

Landslides occur frequently in Indonesia, where tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides and deforestation often means there is little vegetation to hold the soil.

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