With a storm approaching, crews are racing to search a building collapse that killed at least 8 people, mayor says
Yuki Iwamura/AP via CNN Newsource By Gloria Pazmino, Sara Smart, Jeff Winter, Brynn Gingras and Lauren Mascarenhas
(CNN) - More bodies were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building in New York as the sun rose Thursday, bringing the total killed to at least eight. At least 19 people, including three firefighters, were injured when the three-story structure fell Wednesday; four were in critical condition. At least seven children are among the casualties, though it’s not clear if any children were killed. Rescue workers don’t know how many people may be still be trapped.
The building collapsed around 4 p.m. in the central Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush. Firefighters pulled people from a mountain of debris, placing them on stretchers and carrying them up ladders to remove them from the site.
Investigators are looking into what caused the building to collapse into an adjacent construction site, trapping people in both. Lillian Bonsignore, the New York City Fire Department commissioner, said that the massive search and rescue operations have been “extremely dangerous” and fire officials are concerned about a secondary structural fall.
Katie Stevens, a teacher who lives about a block from the building, watched a terrifying scene play out in the hours after the building came down.
Stevens was home from work for Veterans Day when she heard the collapse, at first mistaking the sound for construction that had been ongoing in the area. When she walked down the block to investigate, she saw a man, woman and child holding each other and crying.
“The whole building next to ours just disappeared,” they told her.
About 100 buildings surrounding the rubble of the building are currently without water, according to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.
“DEP has shut down city water mains so emergency crews can continue search and rescue operations,” an NYC Water post says.
Excavators moved into the building collapse site just before 8 a.m. Thursday.
Two such heavy machines worked to clear debris, transferring it piecemeal onto Flatbush Avenue to be searched by hand and by dogs.
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