KUALA LUMPUR - THREE workers have been killed and four others remain trapped after a building undergoing demolition collapsed in the Malaysian capital, reports said on Friday.

A five-storey section of the building in suburban Kuala Lumpur collapsed late on Thursday, as dozens of Indonesian labourers were working on the site.

The official Bernama news agency said that initial investigations pointed to overloading of heavy machinery being used to demolish the former supermarket.

Police spokesman Arjunaidi Mohamed said that two bodies were recovered on Thursday but the remains of a third victim had not been removed because of the dangers of moving around the site, which continued to shudder.

'We're trying to make a hole in the rubble to go down. We managed to reach the third body by crawling through but have yet to bring it out,' he said according to Bernama. -- AFP