Brooklyn Apartment Collapse Kills 8 as Mamdani Orders 100-Site Probe
Eight people are dead after a Brooklyn apartment building collapsed beside an excavation site. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has ordered inspections of about 100 sites tied to companies on the project while rescuers search the rubble in heavy rain.
A Brooklyn apartment building collapsed on Wednesday afternoon, killing eight people in a York City building collapse that has prompted Mayor Zohran Mamdani to order inspections at about 100 construction sites, city officials said.
Two children were among the dead, and 18 people were injured, including four firefighters, Mamdani said. Six people were found dead in the wreckage and two others died later from their injuries. The six adults killed included two construction workers.
The three-story building gave way while workers were digging at an adjacent lot. Rescue crews kept working through torrential rain on Thursday, with some 250 personnel on the scene around the clock, Mamdani said.
Investigators have not determined the cause.
Wider inspections ordered
Mamdani said the city would examine five companies linked to the construction site next door and 100 more sites connected to those entities. Municipal building inspectors fanned out across the city to check them.
"If there is anyone, or any entity, operating in this city that bears responsibility for what happened, we will hold them fully accountable," Mamdani told a news conference.
City records show the building was built in 1930 and had four residential units. Mamdani said it was home to several immigrant families. Two Ecuadoreans were among the dead.
The collapse destroyed a wall of the neighboring residential block, exposing a staircase, closets and a bedroom. Officials ordered three other addresses on the same side of the street vacated as a precaution until safety inspections are finished.
The excavation next door
Satellite imagery showed excavation work at the site began earlier this year. A one-story building that stood there was demolished earlier in the year. Records show contractor Mordechai "Marty" Waisbrod notified the city in September that the earthwork would include rock blasting.
Permit applications indicated plans to dig below 15 feet (4.5 meters). Engineering drawings submitted with them show plans to brace walls at the edge of the site. Messages left for Waisbrod's business, the engineer Jieming Wang and an inspector listed on the project were not returned on Thursday.
Glenn Corbett, a construction safety expert at John Jay College in New York, said it is far too early to know the cause. "It could be a design flaw, it could be a construction flaw, or it could be some kind of work that was going on," he said. The shoring of the excavation appeared to fail, he said, but finding out why will take more investigation.
Witnesses and neighbors
James Williams, who works at a deli across the street, said he heard loud banging at the site all day and saw bricks falling. "Two minutes later, the building collapsed," he said.
Hairstylist Brigitte Anama said she and others ran outside after hearing a boom. "We saw smoke and dust everywhere," she said.
Dervie Mapp, who lives along the construction site, said residents complained about the project for months. Her landlord brought engineers into the building, but residents never received an inspection report, she said. Another woman in a neighboring building said residents blamed vibrations from the work for cracks in their walls.
Emergency workers used power saws and pickaxes to pull four victims from the rubble in the early hours of Thursday. Excavators later removed larger chunks of debris so searchers could go deeper into the construction pit.
"We always assume there are more people there until we can access the ground," Fire Department Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said. "Until we remove some of the bigger debris and are able to search beneath them, this will remain a rescue operation."
It is the second high-profile structural problem at a New York building in five months. In July, several Manhattan buildings were evacuated after support columns buckled inside a skyscraper that was formerly the headquarters of Pfizer.
