BANGALORE • At least six people were killed yesterday when an apartment block collapsed in southern India following a gas tank explosion, police said.

The two-storey building in a crowded neighbourhood in Bangalore city was reduced to rubble after the cooking gas tank triggered a devastating blast.

"The victims were buried in the debris of the building," a police official said, adding that the explosion occurred in the kitchen of a ground-floor flat. "A search is under way to find survivors, if any."

Rescue workers managed to pull a three-year-old alive from the ruins and were frantically searching for others believed trapped beneath tonnes of concrete. A government inquiry has been ordered into the accident.

Building disasters are common in Indian cities, where millions are forced to live in cramped, dilapidated properties because of spiralling real estate prices and a lack of housing for the poor.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE