A wall has collapsed in a busy Melbourne street killing a man and a woman and seriously injuring another woman.
A man and a woman were walking past the vacant construction site when the wall fell and killed them, police say.
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A second woman was injured and has been taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital.
The entire wall gave way and passers-by desperately dug through the rubble to try to help the people trapped underneath, witnesses say.
"I just frantically ran across and started digging because I could see their head and half their torso out, so I was frantically taking the bricks off her," Martin Setka told AAP.
"The whole wall just gave way."
The incident happened just before 3pm (AEDT) on Thursday at the Swanston Square construction site on Swanston Street in Carlton, on the edge of the CBD.
Photos have emerged on Twitter of a large number of people trying to remove the bricks.
Another eyewitness described Swanston Street as chaotic.
Jonathan Lian was sitting in a cafe opposite the building site when the wall collapsed, and came out to see people running towards the wall.
"It was really bad. It was like a war zone.
"There was dust everywhere and they were trying to dig people out. It was like chaos," he said.
It sounded like a thunder clap when the wall fell.
"I heard this really loud noise. Like thunder, like bam!"
The Swanston Square development is on the old Carlton & United Breweries site.
