90 Feared Trapped in Deadly Mumbai Collapse

A multi-story residential building collapsed in India's financial capital of Mumbai early today, killing at least three people and sending rescuers racing to reach dozens of people feared trapped in the rubble. Relatives of the missing wailed and clung to one another, as heavy machinery lifted the largest slabs of concrete away. Dozens of rescue workers hacked away with crowbars at the flattened remains of what was once a five-story building; 16 people have been pulled alive from the building and rushed to a hospital.

"Approximately 80 to 90 people are believed to be left behind in the building and trapped," says the local commander of the National Disaster Response Force, indicating the death toll could soar higher in the coming hours and days. The building collapsed just after 6am near Dockyard Road in the city's southeast; most of the people who lived in the building's 22 apartments were city employees. It was the third deadly building collapse in six months in Mumbai, in a country where shoddy construction and lax inspections make such disasters all too common. (More India stories.)