Three people died Friday and many more were feared trapped after a residential building collapsed in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, sparking a panicked search for survivors beneath the rubble.

Onlookers swarmed the twisted ruins of the six-floor building, using their bare hands to pull injured people coated in dust from beneath the huge slabs of concrete.

The Kenyan Red Cross said 11 survivors had been recovered from the flattened block in Tassia estate, a densely-populated neighbourhood near the international airport.

At least three people have been confirmed killed, said Nairobi Regional Commissioner Wilson Njenga. He put the number of those rescued at 21. The search was ongoing, with specialised rescue crews and heavy earth-moving equipment mingling with volunteers and onlookers trawling through the wreckage.

It is not clear how many people were in the building at the time, or how many may still be trapped, but there were 57 units in the structure.