A file photo shows rescuers holding a person killed in a collapse (AFP Africa)

According to firefighters and local authorities, a building collapsed in Douala, the commercial center of Cameroon, on Sunday, killing at least 16 people and injuring dozens.

"The casualty figures may be higher. Rescue workers, assisted by Cameroon government troops, are still digging the wreckage to see if more bodies can be recovered," according to Samuel Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua, governor of Cameroon's Littoral region.

Around 1:00 am (0000 GMT) in the city's north, a four-story building collapsed into another residential structure, a senior fire brigade officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The Laquintinie Hospital in Douala announced that it had taken in 13 patients and that two of them, a young girl of three and a lady of 19, had passed away.

Three additional kids among the injured were getting urgent pediatric care, it added.

A councilor for the municipal government of Douala, Charles Elie Zang Zang, stated that rescue workers were looking through the debris for survivors.

As for those living in the Ndogbon neighborhood, where the collapse took place, they expressed their shock.

"We heard people screaming … and struggled to help some out of the wreckage, but could not do it with our spades and (garden) hoes," resident Gaspard Ndoppo said.

Locals claim that building collapses are common in Douala, sometimes brought on by natural calamities like landslides and other times by shoddy building practices.

While the city council of Douala is currently tearing down residences in areas in high danger of flooding or landslides, the building that fell today wasn't scheduled for demolition.

In a similar situation, five people were killed in that same area in 2016, and the authorities attributed their deaths to shoddy repair work and possible building code breaches.

Local officials noted that 500 structures were in danger of collapsing in June of that year.