Five bodies were pulled from the ruins of a 12-storey apartment building that collapsed on Monday in the northern Egyptian port city of Alexandria, police said.
About 20 people were believed to have been trapped under rubble after the collapse.
Ambulances and civil defence teams rushed to the site of the collapse in the Loran district in the east of the coastal city and began rescue operations, a source said.
Rescue operations were still under way, and the reason for the collapse was not immediately known.
Building collapses are a frequent occurrence in Egypt. Many structures are unauthorised and not built according to regulations or with poor materials.
Two people were killed in May in the Cairo working-class district of Sayyeda Zeinab when an old building collapsed as workers were restoring it.
In October last year, seven people were killed when a four-storey building collapsed in the Egyptian delta city of Mansura. — Sapa-dpa, Sapa-AFP