Deadly building collapse in western India

At least seven people have died and more than 20 others are said to be still trapped after a four-storey apartment block collapsed in the western Indian city of Vadodara, officials have said.

The government-built block “caved in” on Wednesday at about 4:00am local time in the city’s Manjalpur area, senior administrator Vinod Rao said.

“There were 15 to 20 people in the building which caved in early today,” Rao told AFP news agency adding that five bodies have been found so far.

Rescuers in Vadodara, which is about 110km from the provincial capital, Ahmedabad, had so far also retrieved eight people from the debris of the building, which had 14 apartments.

Another housing block nearby also collapsed, but it had been evacuated.

Last month, a two-storey hotel collapsed in the southern city of Secunderabad, killing 13 people and injuring 17 others.

Several buildings have collapsed in India in recent months, many of them apartment blocks in the financial capital Mumbai.

One collapse in April in Mumbra, a suburb of Mumbai, killed 74 people.

The accidents have highlighted shoddy construction standards in the country, where huge demand for housing and endemic corruption often results in illegal buildings and a lack of safety inspections.