A 10-storey apartment block collapsed in central Turkey today, killing at least one person and trapping several under a pile of rubble, officials said.
An explosion in the central heating system is believed to have caused the disaster in the town of Selcuklu near the city of Konya, the state-run Anatolian news agency said. Earlier reports said the building was in Konya.
Television pictures showed survivors cloaked in white dust, as rescue workers and residents scrambled over piles of concrete, furniture and twisted metal. Anatolian said the rubble stood five metres (16 ft) high.
Private news channel NTV said as many as 120 people may have been in the building, which had 36 apartments. Shops on the ground floor were closed for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha when disaster struck at around 8:30 p.m. (6.30 Irish time).
"There are dead, at least one person was killed. Another 12 people were taken to hospital. Individuals are still being pulled out of the rubble," a police official told reporters.
Anatolian quoted hospital officials as saying none of the people taken to hospital had life-threatening injuries.
Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu told NTV officials were investigating whether faulty construction work contributed to the collapse of the five-year-old building.
Similar disasters have in the past been blamed on Turkey's poorly enforced building codes and shoddy construction.