Seventeen killed, twenty-seven injured in Turkish dormitory collapse

An estimated 40 girls, between the ages of eight and 16, were staying at the building in Balcilar, near the town of Taskent, in the Toros mountain range.

Interior Minister Besir Atalay, speaking at the scene of the disaster, said between four and six girls was under the debris.

Dozens of rescuers were clawing through the rubble looking for survivors. Specialist sniffer dogs were also brought in to help.

Rescuers ordered crowds who gathered around the site to be quiet as they made loudspeaker appeals for survivors to make their presence known by shouting out or knocking on walls, Anatolia news agency reported.

"We think the collapse was caused by a gas canister explosion in the building, given the burns on the injured," Konya health service official Galip Sef was quoted as saying by state-run Anatolian news agency.    

It said the three-storey building belonged to a religious foundation.   Â

The building, used as a dormitory for students taking the Quran courses, is not related to the Department of Religious Affairs, State Minister Sait Yazicioglu told the ANKA News Agency. Illegal Koran courses are very common in Turkey.

Konya Governor Osman Aydin said the incident occurred around 5 a.m. (0200 GMT).

Emergency teams had been dispatched from the capital Ankara to assist the rescue efforts, he added.

"We are hearing voices. I believe those inside the rubble will be saved," the village's mayor, Mehmet Demirgul, told private NTV television. 

Television footage showed local people, some using their bare hands, trying to remove the rubble from a partly flattened, concrete building.

Ninety-two people were killed in another building collapse in Konya in 2004.