Key takeaways:
- The building at 1321 Flatbush Ave. collapsed, and the side of the neighboring building was torn away.
- Four of the injured were in critical condition; seven children were among those hurt.
- Investigators have not determined the cause or whether excavation at the adjacent construction site played a role.
A three-story building collapsed in Brooklyn on Wednesday, killing at least two people and injuring at least 17 as rescue crews searched the rubble for anyone still trapped, officials said. Four of the injured were in critical condition.
The collapse happened just after 4 p.m. on Flatbush Avenue near Bedford Avenue. Police said the building at 1321 Flatbush Ave., which had residents inside, collapsed completely. The side of the neighboring building at 1323 Flatbush Ave. was torn away, exposing stairwells and apartments. The cause remains under investigation.
The building fell toward an adjacent vacant lot where construction was underway, trapping people from the building and the work site, officials said. More than 250 firefighters and emergency medical personnel responded, according to CBS News. Fire Department Chief John Esposito said a fire company already in the neighborhood reached the scene in less than a minute.
“They encountered people trapped in the adjacent building that was part of the collapse. They immediately took action and removed those people from danger,” Esposito said.
Seven children were among the injured, CBS News reported. Fire officials said 13 injured people were in stable condition, including a firefighter with minor injuries; the other four were in critical condition. Authorities had not released the ages of those killed. Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said investigators did not yet know how many people might remain in the collapse zone or how many were missing.
Firefighters searched by hand, broke through a fallen wall and used K-9 units to check the debris. Al Jazeera reported that the Fire Department also deployed a drone to look for victims. CBS News cameras captured a survivor being pulled from the rubble at about 6:15 p.m.; a man at the scene said she was his pregnant wife.
“We know that we’re not finished here, and we will likely not be finished for quite some time,” Bonsignore said. Esposito said crews would remain for several days to search the entire site. At a Wednesday evening news conference, Mayor Zohran Mamdani called it “an incredibly challenging and fast-moving situation, with precarious wreckage to navigate and dangerous voids beneath the surface.”
City building investigators were sent to assess the stability of nearby structures and assist recovery crews, CBS News reported. The outlet said city records show a demolition contractor at the adjacent vacant lot, 2625 Bedford Ave., received a violation in April after inspectors found that a building there had been demolished despite an order to stop work. The violation is listed as resolved. The records cited by CBS News did not say why the stop-work order was issued.
Plans for a new three-story building at the lot had been approved, and excavation was underway before the collapse, building officials told CBS News. It was not clear whether that work contributed to the collapse. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office said it was working with building officials and law enforcement to determine whether any criminal conduct played a role.
The American Red Cross and city emergency management opened a reception center for displaced residents at the Flatbush YMCA. The Red Cross had registered eight adults and two children for assistance, CBS News reported. Officials urged drivers to avoid the area; Flatbush Avenue was closed between Clarendon Road and Bedford Avenue.
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