City records show past violations at collapsed building and next-door project
Rescue crews searched at first light Thursday for survivors in the rubble of a three-story residential building that collapsed a day earlier in Brooklyn’s Flatbush section, as the death toll rose to eight.
Authorities in New York City said at least 17 people were hurt when the building fell at about 4 p.m. Wednesday on the edge of a construction site on Flatbush Avenue. Four people were critically injured, officials said, and at least seven children were among the victims, although it was not clear whether any of the fatalities were minors.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in a post on X on Thursday morning, said he was “heartbroken” by the collapse. “Eight New Yorkers have now lost their lives and at least 17 have been injured, including three firefighters,” he wrote. “There are no words for a loss of this magnitude. My heart is with the families and loved ones of those we have lost, those who are injured and everyone grieving today.”
Mamdani urged the public to stay away from the site on Flatbush Avenue, where about 250 first responders from the New York City fire department worked through what he said were “extremely dangerous conditions” to find anybody still trapped.
The department said in an emailed statement to the New York Times on Thursday morning that it was still hopeful of locating survivors. Workers brought in an excavator in the early hours of Thursday to help move larger pieces of the wreckage, and drones and canine units assisted the effort.
Video taken at the scene Wednesday night showed crews removing several people on stretchers. One person, seen covered in dust, was extricated at about 6:30 p.m. after a crew dug a hole through some of the debris. Among those rescued, New York’s WABC reported, was a woman six months pregnant whose husband had been searching for her through the late afternoon. “I have an update. She is alive, she is still alive. I am very happy,” the man told the station.
Dozens of onlookers, some in tears, gathered to watch the operation. Lillian Bonsignore, the FDNY commissioner, told a Wednesday evening press conference: “We know that we are not finished here, and we will likely not be finished for quite some time.”
Adding to the urgency, the forecast predicted heavy rain with a chance of thunderstorms and gusty winds moving through the borough from lunchtime through Thursday afternoon.
Several people made homeless by the collapse took shelter at the Bethesda Church of God in Christ, opposite the site.
The building that collapsed stood at the edge of a lot where another one-story building had been torn down for a construction project. The site was being excavated, and the fallen building filled the construction pit with bricks and wood. Another building that shared a wall with the collapsed structure remained standing, but its wall was shorn off, exposing the rooms inside, including a bedroom and closets filled with clothing.
Property records show the building as a three-story construction containing four residential units and one commercial unit. It had housed a number of apartments.
Investigators from New York City’s Department of Buildings were at the scene beginning an investigation into the cause of the collapse.
NY1 reported that the department recorded multiple issues in May with a project next door to the collapsed building, including working while there was a stop work order, not having proper overhead protection for the neighboring properties and failing to conform to approved construction drawings. NY1 also reported that the city’s Department of Housing, Preservation and Development recorded almost 100 violations at the collapsed building dating to 1972.