Five killed as hotel building collapses in Ahmedabad

Out of the 30 rescued from the debris of the three-storeyed hotel building, five have died. Many of the injured are in a critical condition, fire brigade officials said.

"More people are still feared trapped under the debris," officials said.

Massive rescues operations are on at the site with fire brigade using cranes and other heavy machines to rescue those trapped inside the debris.

"We have put all our force in the rescue work and we will rescue all those trapped in about one or two hours," Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner I P Gautam said.

Fire brigade sources said that the 25-year-old hotel structure was weak and the owners had started work to repair it. "The probable reason of the collapse was the work going inside the hotel," fire brigade officials said.

Construction work was going on in the adjacent building of the hotel and that might have also affected the building structure, officials said.

They added that the hotel should not have rented rooms when they were working on "stregthening the structure" of the hotel. The hotel was build in 1985.