Brooklyn building collapse kills eight, injures 18 next to construction site

Officials weigh criminal charges as city checks developer’s other sites

Eight people were killed and 18 more were injured when a three-storey building containing apartments and a store collapsed beside an active construction site in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighbourhood on Wednesday, authorities said. The dead included six adults, two children and two construction workers. The collapse occurred at around 16:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on a normally busy avenue where reporters at the scene described chaos.

Witnesses described hearing a loud boom and seeing dust in the air as the building came down. Part of the building appears to have fallen into the construction pit next door, where people were working, trapping and killing some of the workers there.

The building at 1321 Flatbush Avenue was constructed in the 1930s and was fully occupied by residents, with construction workers performing excavation work on the neighbouring site at the time, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. Plans have been approved for a new building on that site that will include 64 residential units and a grocery store on the bottom floor. Investigators said developers hold active permits for excavation and foundation work, and active work was underway when the collapse occurred.

It is not clear whether the construction had anything to do with the collapse, and the city’s buildings department is still investigating. It is too early to say what caused the building to come down, but officials said they are looking into the possibility of filing criminal charges.

In a post on X, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said: “We are working closely with the Department of Buildings and our law enforcement partners to determine whether any criminal conduct contributed to this tragedy.” Mayor Zohran Mamdani later said at a news conference that every entity involved in the building and the construction site will be investigated and held accountable.

The developer has been identified as Robert Fischman. Ahmed Tigani, head of the New York City Department of Buildings, said at a news conference on Thursday that no violations of building codes had been reported at the building before the collapse. Tigani said the developer has ties to at least 100 other sites around the city, which are also now being checked.

More than 250 firefighters responded to the scene and worked through the night to locate trapped victims. Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said firefighters were on the scene within minutes and called their actions “incredibly heroic.” Speaking on Thursday, she said crews “are still in a recovery phase,” and that despite hard rain and falling temperatures at the site, the effort would continue until every victim was located.

Mamdani said six people were pronounced dead at the scene and another two died in hospital. Four of the injured are firefighters, and one person still in hospital is in a critical condition. None of the victims have yet been identified by city officials.

Mamdani described the dead as “our friends and our neighbours. Our parents and our children,” and said: “Young families building their lives in our city, and immigrants from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and beyond.”

The consul general of Ecuador visited the site and confirmed that two victims were Ecuadorian nationals, according to the New York Times. Gicela Andrade told the newspaper that one victim, Jose Luis Caguana Cosquillo, will be flown back to Ecuador for burial, and identified the other victim as Gabriel Ariolfo Siguencia.

Mamdani described a harrowing scene at the site, saying workers “who had only barely survived themselves turned back and dug victims out of the rubble.”

A delivery driver who declined to share his name told the BBC he had just delivered an Amazon package to apartment number 2 in the complex minutes before it crumbled. He described hearing a huge, loud “boom” and said he was shocked to see the building he had just been inside reduced to debris. Within a minute or two, he said, the fire department was on the scene with several trucks and quickly closed the street.

“I live literally right behind the building,” Emmanuella Carilus told the New York Times. “It sounded like a big boom and you just heard a bunch of screaming.”

The husband of a woman filmed being rescued from the rubble spoke of his relief to CBS News New York. “She is alive. She is still alive. I’m very happy. I’m very happy. I’m very happy. I thank all of you guys. She’s pregnant, six months,” he said.

Forecasters predict scattered showers throughout Thursday, and then heavy rain across the New York region from 17:00 local time (22:00 GMT). Tony Sadiku, the CBS meteorologist for New York, warned there is a possibility of severe storms later in the evening that could hamper the search and recovery efforts.