NEW YORK (AP) — Investigators began what could be a long search for the cause of a Brooklyn apartment building collapse that killed eight people as the fire department ended rescue operations Thursday after the last victim was freed from the wreckage.
The three-story building gave way while construction workers were digging Wednesday afternoon at an adjacent lot, causing New York City's mayor to order inspections at about 100 building sites involving companies related to the project.
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“If there is anyone, or any entity, operating in this city that bears responsibility for what happened, we will hold them fully accountable,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said during a news conference.
Investigators have not determined what caused the collapse. Two children, ages 9 and 10, were killed along with adults ranging in age from 22 to 31, according to the New York City Police Department. There were also 18 injured, including four firefighters, Mamdani said. The children were Colombian, as was one of the adults who was killed, according to the country’s consulate in New York.
One witness said he watched bricks fall minutes before the disaster while a woman in a neighboring building said she and fellow residents blamed vibrations from the construction for cracks that appeared in their apartment walls.
Emergency workers used power saws and pickaxes to get through the debris, pulling four victims out of the rubble in the early hours of Thursday. Hours later, excavators removed larger chunks of the wreckage so searchers could get deeper into the construction pit, said New York Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore.
James Williams, who works at a deli across the street, said he heard loud banging at the site all day Wednesday and looked outside to see bricks falling. “Two minutes later, the building collapsed,” he said.
As the building crumbled and exposed the neighboring building, Williams spotted a woman on a staircase. “There wasn’t anything I could do,” he said, his voice cracking.
Customers and stylists at a nearby hair salon jumped up and ran onto the sidewalk as the building fell.
“We heard the boom and we all rushed outside and saw smoke and dust everywhere,” said hairstylist Brigitte Anama.
She saw emergency workers pulling people from the rubble, including what appeared to be a child. “People were saying, ‘Pray for the baby, pray for the baby,’” Anama said.
Dervie Mapp, who lives along the construction site, said she and others complained for months about the project. Her landlord brought engineers into the building, but residents never received an inspection report, she said.
Construction safety expert Glenn Corbett of John Jay College in New York said it’s way too early to know what caused the accident.
“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.
It appeared that the shoring of the excavation work failed, but finding out why will take more investigating, he said.
The one-story building previously on the site was demolished earlier this year. Records show a contractor, Mordechai “Marty” Waisbrod, notified the city that excavation would begin in September and include rock blasting.
Permit applications indicated plans to dig below 15 feet (4.5 meters). Phone and email messages were left at one of Waisbrod’s Brooklyn-based businesses.
Engineering drawings submitted with the applications show various plans to brace walls at the edge of the site. Messages were left Thursday for the engineer, Jieming Wang, and for an inspector who’s listed as being involved with the project.
This was the second high-profile structural problem with a building in New York in the past five months. In July, several buildings in Manhattan were evacuated after support columns buckled inside a skyscraper that once was the headquarters of Pfizer.
First responders in Brooklyn worked to clear a massive heap that included mattresses, a broken sink and a refrigerator tossed on its side. Scattered in the debris were vinyl records, clothes and shoes.
Firefighters pulled a pregnant woman from the rubble Wednesday, hoisted her up on a stretcher and rushed her to a waiting ambulance. Others were rescued as the night wore on.
Building records show there were four apartments on the upper two floors and a commercial unit on the ground floor of the collapsed building.
The police department identified those killed as Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9; Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31; Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10; Ndiaye Mamadou, 31; Barry Mamadou, 23; Gabriel Siguencia, 22; Edgar Sapon, 26; and Jose Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26.
Some of the victims were from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Trinidad, New York’s mayor said. Two of the dead were construction workers, he said.
Some workers who survived joined firefighters in digging out survivors, he said.
Caguana Cosquillo and Siguencia were from Ecuador, according to the Consulate of Ecuador in New York.
Carlos Caguana said his brother, José, was working at the construction site and had a pregnant wife and a young child.
“He was the sole provider for the family,” Caguana told WNBC-TV.
The surrounding blocks along Flatbush Avenue, a busy thoroughfare in Brooklyn, are tightly packed with older brick buildings and a few newly built apartment complexes. A mix of Caribbean and Mexican restaurants reflects the diversity of the neighborhood.
New York City’s buildings commissioner, Ahmed Tigani, said Wednesday that construction workers were excavating the empty lot next door when the building buckled. The city’s Department of Buildings is investigating.
City officials said a stop work order was issued in March after inspectors concluded the building next door was being demolished without adequate overhead protection such as netting to shield neighboring buildings, the department said in an emailed statement.
In April, inspectors found that the demolition work had resumed in violation of the stop work order, the department said. Work was allowed to continue after the problems were corrected, it said.
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McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Yuki Iwamura in New York; Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa; R.J. Rico in Atlanta; Laura Turbay in Little Rock, Arkansas; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
