At least 2 people dead in Brooklyn building collapse

NEW YORK — At least two people died and 17 were injured on Wednesday when a three-story apartment building collapsed in New York City, tumbling into a large hole created by a construction site next door, officials said.

The collapse, which took place just after 4 p.m. near the intersection of Bedford and Flatbush avenues in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, sheared off the wall of an adjacent three-story building and left a staircase, bedroom and closets exposed to the open air.

Lillian Bonsignore, the city’s fire commissioner, said that two people had been killed in the collapse and 17 others had been injured, including seven children. Four people were critically injured, she said.

Some 250 firefighters and emergency responders crawled over a large pile of rubble for hours in an effort to rescue people at the scene.

The search for additional victims was continuing Wednesday night.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the Department of Buildings and law enforcement would lead an investigation into the cause of the collapse. “This has been an incredibly challenging and fast moving situation with precarious wreckage to navigate and dangerous voids beneath the surface,” he told reporters.

Sources: Esri, The New York Times (Map by Mark Nowlin / The Seattle Times)

Firefighters responded within a minute of the collapse, just after 4 p.m., which resounded through a busy neighborhood on a quiet Veterans Day with a deafening roar. The building contained four apartments, with a commercial space on the ground floor, according to city information.

“Everything went down, and everybody was screaming,” said Melissa Orna, 53, who said she heard the building collapse as she dropped her daughter off at a hair salon nearby. “The whole building started shaking, and then it just fell.”

Crowds gathered as people waited to hear news of loved ones they believed were caught in the rubble. Fire officials said they did not know how many people might still be missing, and said the search operation would likely continue for days.

The building that collapsed was built in 1930, according to city data.

Directly adjacent to the collapsed building was a large construction site. A deep dirt pit marked the spot where a one-story building had stood. Building officials said they had approved plans for a three-story building to be built at the site, and that developers had submitted plans for a nine-story building.

Excavation work was taking place at the site at the time of the collapse, officials said.

Here’s what else to know:

— The neighborhood. The collapse took place on a bustling thoroughfare that runs through the heart of the Little Haiti section of Flatbush. Though the street itself is lined with shops, the surrounding neighborhood is largely residential. More people may have been home than on a typical Wednesday, as it was Veterans Day and schools and some businesses were closed.

— Building site: The construction site next to the collapse was formerly a one-story building but it had been demolished. In March, the Department of Buildings ordered the property owner to halt the demolition, but upon reinspection, inspectors found the entire structure had been leveled, according to city records. The department issued a $10,000 fine for the violation.