PETIONVILLE, Haiti — Rescue crews working under the glare of floodlights dug through the rubble of a collapsed school early Saturday in a frantic search for students who may still trapped in a disaster that has already killed at least 47 people.

It is not known how many students were in the school when it collapsed Friday morning. But authorities said roughly 500 children and teenagers typically crowded into the three-story concrete building of College La Promesse, which served classes from kindergarten through high school.

The chaotic rescue effort by Red Cross workers, U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian authorities was inhibited from the start by thousands of grieving neighbors, who blocked the steep, narrow street and fought with school officials to enter the collapsed building in search of their children and friends.

U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police were able to establish some order by setting up human chains and checkpoints along the road in the hills above Port-au-Prince. But they have been unable to get heavy equipment through the crowds and to the scene, leaving rescuers to essentially work with their hands.

At least 39 bodies were brought to the morgue at Port-au-Prince's General Hospital, Haitian police spokesman Garry Desrosier said.

Another eight people died in a trauma center run by the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, spokesman Francois Servranckx said. More than 80 others were being treated for injuries by the aid group.

The concrete building's third story was still under construction, and Petionville Mayor Claire Lydie Parent told The Associated Press she suspects a structural defect caused the collapse, not the recent chain of tropical storms that swept devastation across Haiti.

Police commissioner Francene Moreau says the minister who runs the church-operated school could face criminal charges.