Rescuers found one dead body and pulled out nearly 60 survivors from a collapsed residential building in central India, an official said Tuesday.

Workers were still looking for more than 20 people feared trapped in the rubble of the five-story building that collapsed Monday evening, senior official Nidhi Chaudhari said. It occurred in Mahad, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) from India's financial capital of Mumbai in the central state of Maharashtra.

Dozens of rescuers from the National Disaster Relief Force worked overnight with tools to pry apart the debris, Chaudhari said. Some of the grievously injured extracted from the wreckage were hospitalized, she said.

Officials said many residents of the 47 flats inside the building were spared because they had already fled the town to escape the coronavirus pandemic. 

A video shared on social media late Monday showed a group of men on top of the collapsed building removing debris by hand while dozens of onlookers watched.

India's Home Minister Amit Shah tweeted that the collapse was tragic and that he was "praying for everyone's safety."

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but building collapses are common during India's June-September monsoon, with old and rickety structures buckling after days of non-stop rain. 

Estimates of the number still trapped ranged from 20 to 70 after dozens managed to flee when the building began to shake. 

"No one knows how many people are actually stuck inside," a Mahad police official said on condition of anonymity, adding that authorities had initially feared the worst, with early estimates as high as 200. 

Mahad legislator Bharat Gogawale said that many of the building's occupants appeared to have been out shopping when the accident occurred around 7 p.m. 

"As per latest estimates, we think 20 people are trapped inside," he said. 

Others had left the town altogether, preferring to wait out the pandemic in their home villages. 

"Many families were not residing in the building as they went to their native places due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown," district official Nidhi Choudhari told the Press Trust of India.

(With input from AP and AFP)