Early Friday, a girls' dormitory collapsed in Balcilar, south-central Turkish, killing at least 14 girls and injuring 27 others, CNN reported.

News reports showed rescue workers struggling with the rubble, making efforts to save the trapped victims of the collapse. But today, the Associated Press announced that 4 more bodies have been discovered under the debris. After taking out the 18th corpse, rescue teams called of the search for survivors, an official reported Saturday.

According to mayor Mehmet Demirgul, rescue efforts continued late Friday until workers uncovered the body of a girl whose family members have reported to authorities that their daughter was missing.

At first, officials believed that the blast at the Bogazici School in Konya province appeared to have been caused by a gas canister, which has exploded. However, the Anatolia news agency later said that a leak from a gas pipe carrying liquefied petroleum gas was the most likely cause of the explosion, which took place around 4.15 local time, when many of the girls were asleep.

At the time the disaster occurred, about 45 girls, aged 8 to 16, were in the 18-year-old building, Osman Aydin, the governor of Konya province asserted. They were attending Quran courses during the school summer holiday.

There were no reports insinuating that the blast was an act of terrorism.

As stated by Ugur Ibrahim Altay, the leader of the local civil engineers chamber, the three-story building was unlicensed. "The quality of the concrete is very poor," he said. "If better material was used, it would at least not have turned into rubble like this."