Rescuers on Saturday recovered the bodies of nine more climbers from Malaysia's highest peak a day after it was struck by a strong earthquake, bringing the total number of dead to 11.

Eight more people are missing on the 4,095-meter Mount Kinabalu, where a magnitude-5.9 earthquake on Friday sent rocks and boulders raining down the trekking routes and trapping dozens of climbers.

Most of them made it down the mountain, some with broken limbs and one is in a coma. Among the dead retrieved on Friday evening was a 30-year-old local guide and a 12-year-old female Singaporean student, district police official Farhan Lee Abdullah said.

Police said earlier Saturday they were looking for 17 others, including eight Singaporeans, and one each from China, the Philippines and Japan. The rest are Malaysians. The nationalities of the nine dead who were later recovered were not immediately clear.

Some 60 rescuers and four helicopters were combing the mountain, where loose rocks and boulders that fell during the quake blocked part of the main route.

The quake also damaged roads and buildings, including schools and a hospital on Sabah's west coast.

Manjun tweeted that it also broke one of the twin rock formations on the mountain known as the “Donkey's Ears.” (AP)