At least 11 people have died after a building collapsed near India's western city of Mumbai, police say.

Many others are feared trapped beneath the three-storey building in Thane after the incident early on Tuesday.

Reports say the municipality had declared the old, dilapidated property dangerous to live in, but residents had refused to vacate.

More than 100 people have died in residential building collapses in Mumbai in the last two years.

The three-storey building was more than 50 years old

Rescuers are searching through the rubble for survivors after the building in the Naupada area collapsed while families were sleeping inside, an official said.

"Eleven bodies have been recovered and seven people pulled out alive. Another one person is missing," rescue official Alok Avasthy told the AFP news agency.

He said people were living in the 50-year-old building even though it "had been declared unsafe by the government two years ago".

(Source: BBC)