Russian children die in school collapse

Part of a school building in a provincial Russian town collapsed, killing five children and injuring four, the latest casualties of Russia's crumbling infrastructure.

An entire section of the two-storey building housing the school in Belyayevka, 120 kilometres from the regional capital Orenburg in the southeastern Urals, came crashing down, spreading debris over a wide area.

Local people rushed to help firemen and police trying to rescue children from the rubble, and emergency workers sent from Orenburg brought in a crane to help remove the piles of debris.

"Eleven children have been taken out of the rubble, five of them are dead, four are injured and 800 people were evacuated," an Emergencies Ministry spokesperson in Orenburg said.

The death toll was not expected to rise, she added.