Eight killed after buildings collapse in India

Eight people were killed when two adjacent three-storey apartment buildings collapsed in western India, police said.

Local police officer Bhanu Pratap Parmar said one building collapsed early today in Vadodara, a city in Gujurat state, and the other fell half an hour later.

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Mr Parmar said rescuers were working to pull out at least a dozen people trapped in the debris.

Most of the occupants of the 14 apartments in the first building were sleeping when it collapsed. The adjacent housing block was evacuated minutes before it collapsed.

Building collapses are common in India as builders try to cut corners by using substandard materials, and as multistory structures are built with inadequate supervision.