Four people were killed when a residential building collapsed south of Beirut, the Lebanese army said Tuesday, fuelling concerns about the safety of the housing stock after four years of economic crisis.

Four people were rescued as emergency teams assisted by troops searched for survivors into the early hours, the army added.

Monday evening's building collapse was the second this month in the Beirut satellite town of Choueifat. The previous one had caused no casualties.

Human rights group Amnesty International called on Lebanese authorities to "urgently... assess the safety of buildings across the country".

It said "thousands of people" were still living in "unsafe buildings" in Lebanon's main northern city of Tripoli more than a year after the structures were weakened by a major earthquake centred on Turkey and neighbouring Syria.

Lebanon's economy collapsed in late 2019, plunging most of the population into poverty, according to the United Nations.

Many inhabited structures are in an advanced state of disrepair and construction regulations are widely ignored.