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At least two people have died, while others have been trapped in the rubble after a three-storey building collapsed in Brooklyn, New York, at the edge of a construction site on Wednesday afternoon.
Some 250 firefighters and police officers tackled the rubble with pickaxes and saws to pull people covered in dust from beneath piles of twisted wood and brick.
During a press conference, officials said that at least 17 people had been hospitalised, four in critical condition. While it is unclear whether people might still be trapped, New York City Fire Department officials stated that search and rescue operations would continue into the night.
“This has been an incredibly challenging and fast-moving situation, with precarious wreckage to navigate and dangerous voids beneath the surface,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said. “This type of rescue is exactly what the FDNY trains for.”
According to New York City’s Buildings Commissioner, Ahmed Tigani, the building fell when construction workers were digging an empty lot next door for a new building. However, the cause of the collapse is under investigation.
The collapsed building, which housed apartments above ground-level businesses, was reduced to a massive mound of debris at the bottom of the construction pit. The neighbouring structure, which shared a wall with the building, was left standing but suffered extensive damage. Much of its exterior wall had been ripped away, leaving the interiors exposed, including a bedroom and closets with clothes still hanging inside.
One of the survivors was a woman who was pulled from the rubble by firefighters late in the afternoon after a hole had been dug through the debris. Meanwhile, more people continued to be pulled from the rubble as search and rescue operations proceeded, including seven children, although officials did not specify whether any of them were among the dead.
FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said the rescue teams, who were digging by hand and using drones to carry out operations, were performing “dangerous and perilous” work. “Every move is choreographed,” she said.
One firefighter was left with minor injuries, according to fire officials.
One resident of the collapsed building, Anderson Velez, recounted that he was at work when his wife phoned and said that their two children, aged 2 and 7, were among those trapped in the rubble, the New York Post reported.
“She called me when the building collapsed while she was inside with rubble on top of her. She was screaming for someone to help get my son out and then the call cut off,” he said.
Velez said he later found out that his family had been rescued from the rubble alive.
Additional sources • AP