Colombia has declared a sanitary emergency as some 380,000 inhabitants face epidemics due to the overflowing of rivers and the lack of drinking water in Huila province, health officials said Wednesday.

The constant rainfalls have killed at least four people and left 10 others missing in Colombia's southwestern region, local media quoted the officials as saying.

A landslide overwhelmed a house killing its four occupants in Huila's Campoalegre locality, police said.

Medical teams were preparing to attend to inhabitants affected by the rainfalls and floods, Neiva city's Health Secretary Sandra Lopez said.

In southwestern Cauca province, some 12,000 people were left without drinking water when a landslide damaged an aqueduct in Piendamo municipality.

Education institutions suspended classes in the region to avoid an outbreak of disease among students during the rainfalls.

The Disaster Attention and Prevention Department warned that the Cauca river in the southwest and a dam in La Virginia in Risaralda province in the central west were about to overflow and cause floods.

In 2007, heavy rainfall caused 67 deaths and affected 750,000 people in Colombia, according to the Red Cross.