Rescuers hunted for scores of people feared trapped in the rubble of homes crushed in a massive rockslide in a northern Cairo shantytown, as the toll hit at least 30 killed and 47 injured.

Witnesses said workers shifted mounds of rubble and rocks during the night in a desperate race to find survivors of Saturday's tragedy, with some estimates putting the number of people still missing at 500.

Huge boulders each weighing "hundreds of tonnes" according to one official, broke off Moqattam hill early Saturday, destroying at least 35 homes in the impoverished and densely populated Manshiyet Nasser neighbourhood.

The section of hill that broke away was estimated at 60 metres wide and 15 metres long.

Rescuers used their bare hands to shift debris in a desperate bid to find victims while specially trained dog handlers were deployed to locate survivors.

According to the health ministry, rescuers had by Sunday recovered 30 bodies while 47 people were being treated for injuries, some critical.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered the government to provide housing for those left homeless and issue compensation to families of the victims, the state-owned Al-Ahram reported.

After an emergency meeting, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said that there would be a full review of housing settlements built throughout the country without construction permits, known as "ashwaeeyat".

Rescue work was delayed yesterday after it took five hours for cranes and special heavy lifting machinery to arrive so the grim task of removing rocks and rubble could begin.

"It was horrible, like an earthquake," said Farghali Gharib, who lost eight members of his family in the rockslide, five sisters, a sister-in-law and her two children.

The reason for the rockfall was not immediately known but angry residents said work had been taking place on the hill for several weeks, and that the authorities had been warned about the dangers.

Egypt has a poor track record of building safety often blamed on the flouting of construction regulations, particularly involving adding extra floors without permission.

In July five people were killed, including seven-year-old twins, when a three-storey building in the Nile Delta collapsed.

Last December 35 people died when a 12-storey building in Alexandria came down. Two years earlier, in the same city, the collapse of a six-storey building killed 19 people. Three extra floors had been added illegally.

Tougher legislation against construction firms that ignore the law was introduced in 1996 after a building in Cairo's residential suburb of Heliopolis caved in, killing 64 people.