KEY POINTS:
ISTANBUL - An eight-storey building collapsed in Istanbul on Thursday and one man was rescued but authorities said they did not expect many casualties as people ran away when they heard the building start to crack.
It was not clear how many people were inside the building in the Sirinevler district on the European side of Istanbul, but most people had left the building before the collapse, Istanbul's governor Muammer Guler said.
A 32-year-old man was rescued from the rubble as teams worked into the night.
"Most of the people left the building when they heard cracking sounds, but a few people re-entered to get their things," Guler said.
Television stations showed pictures of men and women weeping around the rubble and sorting through the remnants of the building.
Earlier this year, a woman died when a building collapsed on the outskirts of Istanbul, Turkey's largest city. Shoddy construction, lack of building regulation and corruption have been blamed for past building collapses in Turkey.
- REUTERS
