Search for survivors as Cambodia building collapse toll rises to 7

Hundreds of soldiers and rescuers frantically picked through the rubble of a collapsed building in southern Cambodia on Saturday looking for bodies as the death toll from the disaster rose to seven.

They used excavators, drills and power saws to clear concrete the morning after the seven-storey hotel under construction in seaside Kep province crumbled to the ground with an estimated 30 workers inside, prompting an all-night rescue.

It was the latest deadly accident to mar the kingdom's poorly regulated building sector even as hotels, high-rises and casinos spring up in a construction boom.

Cambodian leader Hun Sen, who travelled to the site on Friday evening, said on his official Facebook page that seven people had been killed so far while the "search continues".

Eighteen survivors were also pulled out of the debris, according to the Kep provincial administration, but tearful relatives were waiting for more information about loved ones who had not been found.

"I don't have any hope, because the rubble is piled up," Has Rith told AFP in the early hours of Saturday.

"I could not reach them by phone."