Building collapse in India kills 11

Two adjacent apartment buildings collapsed early Wednesday in western India, killing at least 11 people, police and firefighters said.

Rescue workers recovered 11 bodies and four badly injured people from the debris of the three-story buildings that fell in the city of Vadodara in Gujarat state, said fire chief Hitesh Taparia.

Most of the tenants in the first building, comprised of 14 apartments, were spleeping when the building collapsed. The adjacent building was evacuated just minutes before it came down, according to police officer Bhanu Pratap Parmar.

The buildings were part of 33 housing blocks constructed by the Gujarat government more than a decade ago to house the poor.

More than 250 rescue workers were working to clear debris from the site and search for survivors in the mountain of twisted metal, concrete slabs, bricks and mortar. The cause of the building collapse was not immediately clear.

According to police officials, there had been unusually heavy rain in Vadodara during monsoon season this year, which potentially could have damaged the foundation of the two buildings.

The Gujarat government has ordered an investigation into the collapse and will check for structural damage in the 31 other buildings in the complex, Taparia said.

Building collapses are common in India. Builders cut corners by using substandard materials and multistory structures are often built without proper supervision.

A massive demand for housing around India's cities and widespread corruption result in builders adding additional floors to buildings illegally, or putting up whole buildings entirely without proper approval.

In April a building collapse in Mumbai killed 72 people and injured 70 others. Sixty seven people died in November 2010 when a tenement filled with migrant workers collapsed in eastern part of New Delhi, largely a working-class area.

With Al Jazeera and Wire Services