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Rescuers search for trapped workers after a building collapsed near Chennai, India. Photograph: Arun Sankar K/AP

COLOMBO Mon Jun 30, 2014

Police in southern India detained five construction company officials on Sunday as rescuers using gas cutters and shovels searched for dozens of workers believed buried beneath a building that collapsed during monsoon rains. It was one of two weekend building collapses that killed at least 22 people. Nearly 90 contract workers are believed to have been in the basement of the 11-storey structure collecting their wages when it collapsed on Saturday on the outskirts of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu. Police said of 31 people pulled from the rubble four had died on the spot and seven died later in hospital.

Officials said the exact number of those trapped is unknown. Rescuers could hear voices in the rubble which may take two to three days to clear. Police officer George Fernandes said two directors, two engineers and a supervisor of the construction company, Prime Sristi, were detained for questioning.

Diggers were brought in to sift through the debris in the search for survivors. Photograph: Arun Sankar K/AP

Balaguru, a builder at the site, said the structure may have collapsed due to lightning. "Usually, once the construction gets over we install the equipment to prevent the building from a thunder strike. It was nearing completion," the Press Trust of India news agency quoted him as saying.

Earlier on Saturday 11 people died and one survivor was taken to hospital after a four-storey, 50-year-old structure toppled in a poor neighbourhood of New Delhi, said the fire service officer Praveer Haldiar.Building collapses are common in India, where high demand for housing and lax regulations have encouraged some builders to cut corners, use substandard materials or add unauthorised extra floors.