Mexico shopping centre CAVES IN and KILLS at least seven in Monterrey city

In addition to the dead, 15 others were injured.

All the victims are believed to be construction workers, local council secretary Genaro Garcia told a press conference.

Construction work was being carried out on the vast structure in Nuevo Leon state when the collapse happened.

The disaster happened in Monterrey, which is the capital of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon.

Images show emergency services workers scrambling to clear the rubble of bodies.

Huge concrete slabs appear to have caved in a fallen on top of each other causing a mass collapse.

Roughly 150 emergency personnel were departing searching for survivors.

The Civil Defence office released a brief statement explaining nine people were still believed to be missing after the collapse.

It comes after a newly-opened mall collapsed in July on the south side of Mexico City.

The cave-in was caused by a faulty support beam, which allowed operators to evacuate the mall so that no one was injured when the top floors collapsed about five minutes later.

Video footage posted on social media showed a multi-storey part of the building as it fell in on itself spewing clouds dust and debris into the sky.

The contorted metal from the building along with other debris fell onto major motorway lanes nearby.

The central thoroughfare has been temporarily closed to avoid further causalities amid the clean-up.

The Mexican news website La Silla Roja has confirmed some of the workers who died as Pedro Escalona Perez, 50, Franciso Javier Escalona Perez, 48, Franciso Javier Escalona Rodriguez, 25, Artuo David Solis Reyna, 24, and Jesus Cotero Jimenez, 24.

Deputy Attorney Luis Enrique Orozco gave a press conference in which he said the Urban Development Secretary had forbidden the owners of the mall to continue working on its construction.

But the work went ahead despite the suspension, La Silla Roja has reported.