NEW YORK (The Thursday Times) — At least eight people were killed and 17 injured when a three-storey building collapsed into a construction site next door in the Flatbush neighbourhood of Brooklyn on Wednesday afternoon, the New York City fire department said on Thursday.
Six people were found dead at the scene and two died in hospital, the fire department said. Rescuers worked through the night under floodlights, using drones and sniffer dogs, to search the rubble for anyone still trapped.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was “heartbroken that eight New Yorkers have now lost their lives”. “There are no words for a loss of this magnitude,” he said in a post on Thursday.
The mixed-use building, at 1321 Flatbush Avenue, toppled into the site at about 4pm, trapping residents and construction workers inside, said Lillian Bonsignore, the city’s fire commissioner. Rescuers pulled a survivor from the rubble, and a pregnant woman was among those brought out.
On Wednesday evening, four of the injured were in critical condition and 12 were stable, according to the fire department. Three firefighters were among those hurt, the mayor said.
A prolonged operation
The cause of the collapse is under investigation. Bonsignore said rescuers faced “dangerous and perilous conditions” and that the search would be “a prolonged operation”, warning that moving too quickly could disturb the piles of debris.
The Department of Buildings has issued a full stop-work order on the neighbouring site, where developers held active permits for excavation and foundation work on a new building. Ahmed Tigani, the city’s buildings commissioner, said his department and law enforcement would lead the investigation into the cause.
Mamdani said the first crew reached the scene one minute after the first emergency call, because it was returning from a nearby job. The fire department sent up a drone to look for anyone still trapped, and the city opened a help centre for affected families at the local YMCA.
Footage from the scene showed exposed bedrooms and stairwells in an adjoining building. Flatbush is home to a large Black and Afro-Caribbean community.
