Brooklyn building collapse: 2 dead, 7 children among at least 19 injured

A three-story building fully collapsed in Flatbush, Brooklyn Wednesday, killing two people and injuring at least 19, including seven children, FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said at a press conference at the collapse site late Wednesday.

"We do not know how many people are still in the collapse zone," she said. "We will likely not be finished for some time."

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said ten of the victims had been transported to local hospitals with both critical and non-life-threatening injuries.

"This has been an incredibly challenging and fast-moving situation, with precarious wreckage to navigate and dangerous voids beneath the surface," he said. "DOB and our law enforcement partners will be leading an investigation into the cause of this building collapse."

The FDNY said it received a call about the collapse at 2625 Bedford Ave. just after 4 p.m.

The building collapsed into a hole where construction workers had been excavating for a new building on an adjacent lot earlier in the day, according to the city's buildings commissioner Ahmed Tigani. A developer has submitted plans to the department for a nine story building that have yet to be approved.

FDNY Cheif of Department John Esposito said the agency's emergency responders arrived one minute after the three-story residential building collapsed and that rescue workers are using dogs to search for victims in the pile of debris.

In an interivew with WNYC, Councilmember Farah Louis described a chaotic scene late Wednesday evening with rubble strewn along Flatbush and Bedford Avenues.

"We've seen infants, toddlers being pulled out of the rubble on stretchers into ambulances to be rushed to the hospital. We've seen a husband who was desperately waiting to see if his wife would be pulled out of the rubble, who was also six months pregnant," Louis said. "They did find her, and she is in critical condition. It's just a horrific scene for our community and the constituents that live in this building."

A photo from the scene at the intersection of Flatbush and Bedford avenues showed firefighters at a construction site filled with debris. The images appeared to show nearly all of the building had collapsed into an adjacent construction site, exposing a stairway and clothes stored in a closet in a neighboring residential building.

"You see the building next to it is sheered off in part," former FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh told WNYC, who warned that Thursday's forecast for storms could further complicate the rescue effort and the collapse site. "Rain and wind can cause further instability."

Mamdani said Flatbush Avenue was closed between Clarendon to Bedford Avenues and urged New Yorkers to avoid the area as rescue work continued into the night.

New York City's Office of Emergency Management said it has coordinated with the Red Cross to open a reception center for impacted residents at the Flatbush YMCA at 1401 Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

Department of Buildings spokesperson David Maggiotto told Gothamist that buildings officials were at the scene and would investigate the cause of the collapse.

This is a developing story that will be updated.