Rescue teams were working to free people trapped after part of a hotel collapsed in western Germany, killing one person and burying another eight, authorities said on Wednesday.

Emergency services have already rescued one man, a child, and two women from the building on Wednesday morning, a police spokesman told AFP. The person who died has not yet been recovered, the spokesman added.

A floor in the hotel in Kroev, a town some 110 kilometres west of Frankfurt, collapsed for unknown reasons around 11:00 pm local time on Tuesday, police said in a statement.

Of the 14 people inside at the time, five managed to get out. Some of those still trapped “were seriously injured”, police said.

Emergency services have been able to make contact with some of them but the operation was difficult “as the building could only be entered […] with the utmost caution”, the spokesman said.

Thirty-one residents from the local neighbourhood were evacuated and some 250 search-and-rescue staff were working at the site.

Dutch media reported that a Dutch family of three was among those buried under the rubble. The mother and child had been pulled out alive but the father was still trapped, Dutch national news agency ANP said.

The family were reportedly from Urk, a small fishing town in the north of the Netherlands.