An apartment building has collapsed in the Turkish city of Istanbul, killing one person and injuring eight, authorities said. The collapse renewed fears about the resilience of buildings in a city prone to earthquakes.

Surveillance video shows the moment a building collapsed onto a street in southern Istanbul. Images from a camera across the street showed passengers waiting to board a public minibus at the time of the collapse narrowly escaped being struck by falling debris.

The video shows dust engulfing the street after the disintegrating building narrowly missed the bus as the front facade fell the ground.

TV images showed firefighters shifting rubble by hand from the flattened five-storey building in Kucukcekmece, on the city's European side. Seven people were initially pulled from the debris, including two who were seriously injured, Istanbul Governor Davut Gul said while visiting the scene.

His office later said one more injured person was rescued and a body was recovered.

The governorship said the 36-year-old structure collapsed at 8:40am local time. The cause was not immediately clear but there was no sign of an explosion or seismic activity. Only the top two floors were being used as residences, with the rest of the building being occupied by businesses.

Rescuers pull survivors from the rubble after the building collapsed onto a street in Istanbul. – Reuters 

More than 59,000 people were killed last year when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck parts of southern Turkey and neighbouring Syria. The disaster highlighted the poor enforcement of building regulations in Turkey.

Istanbul, with an official population of 16 million, lies near the North Anatolian Fault. A 1999 earthquake centered to the south of the city killed at least 18,000 people. The municipality has said there are 200,000 buildings housing 3 million people that are in urgent need of improvement.