A 70FT section of the former Great Eastern Hotel in Glasgow's East End collapsed today.

Safety fears prompted road closures around the Duke Street development site earlier this week.

And this morning one corner of the building, which was surrounded by scaffolding, was allowed to collapse.

The work on the building is part of a £15million project to transform the derelict hotel into flats.

A spokesman for contractor CCG said: "Work to stabilise the building has been undertaken safely without problem.

"A section that was predicted to fail did fail. It was totally controlled and police were notified, as was building control.

"The collapse meant scaffolding put up previously had to be sacrificed because it would have been unsafe to remove it.

"Now engineers can have a greater look at how the other sections of the building have been affected."

Traffic restrictions around the site will likely remain for three weeks.

Duke Street is closed in both directions between High Street and Bellgrove Street, while John Knox Street is shut between Wishart Street and Duke Street.

Duke Street has also been closed to pedestrians in front of the Great Eastern.

There are traffic diversions eastbound between High Street, Gallowgate, Bellgrove Street and Duke Street and westbound between Duke Street, Bellgrove Street, Gallowgate, Moir Street, London Road, and High Street.

The Great Eastern Hotel, which opened in 1907, used to house homeless men. It was closed as a hostel in 2001.