PANAJI: At least 14 people have been killed and over 100 people are feared trapped after an under-construction building in Goa’s Canacona town collapsed on Saturday.

Fourteen bodies were pulled from the wreckage of a building under construction that collapsed “like a house of cards” authorities said.

The residential building caved in around mid-afternoon, when some 50 daily wage laborers, were working on the site, police said.

“We have got 14 bodies from the wreckage. We expect the death toll to rise,” Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said.

A witness said the building collapsed like “a pack of cards.”

Fire and emergency service crews rushed to the spot. Rescue workers using cranes and bulldozers, shovels and bare hands, struggled to shift concrete slabs and other debris to free the trapped laborers.

Hundreds of onlookers stood watching the rescue efforts as police sought to shoo them away from the site, saying they were hampering access for machinery.

“The current priority is to rescue people trapped under the rubble and the government has also taken help of the army to clear the debris,” Parikkar told the Press Trust of India separately.

Parrikar had been near the village to attend a state-sponsored folklore festival that was later canceled by the government.

The building collapse, the latest in a string of deadly construction cave-ins in India recently, occurred in the seaside village of Canacona, south of the capital city of Panaji.

Initial reports said that the structure was five-story apartment residence.