Brooklyn Building Collapse: At Least Two Killed in Flatbush, More Than a Dozen Hospitalized as Rescuers Search the Rubble
A three-story mixed-use building fell into the construction site next door around 4 p.m. Wednesday. CNN's updated count Thursday puts the dead at at least two; the first full report counted 12 injured, six critically, with about 250 FDNY and EMS personnel on scene by nightfall.
A building that stood Wednesday morning in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood was a pile of rubble by Wednesday night, and the count from it is still rising. The mixed-use, three-story building collapsed around 4 p.m. Wednesday, falling into a construction site next door, CNN reported. CNN's updated reporting on Thursday put the toll at at least two people killed and more than a dozen hospitalized; an incidents summary put the hospitalized at at least 17. The network's first full report had counted one dead and 12 injured, six of them critically - the numbers moving as rescuers worked through the debris.
The response was one of the largest the borough has mounted this year. By 7 p.m. Wednesday, about 250 FDNY and EMS personnel were on the scene, investigators were flying thermal-imaging drones, and officials believed several people were still trapped or missing in the wreckage. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said first responders 'are working quickly to secure the location and assist New Yorkers,' and New York City Emergency Management set up a Red Cross help center for the displaced and the waiting.
Among the injured, the reporting counts at least one child - Council Member Farah N. Louis told NY1 a child was among those hurt - and among the rescued, a woman six months pregnant, pulled from the building alive; her husband described the rescue to WABC. Names of the dead have not been released in the reporting read Thursday morning, and the search was continuing.
The lot next door is part of the story investigators now have to read. The adjacent site had been vacant - formerly a senior adult day care - and was awaiting a permit for an affordable housing project. City records CNN reviewed show a demolition stop-work violation at the site in April, resolved in October after a $10,000 penalty. The New York City Department of Buildings is investigating; no cause has been announced, and nothing in the record read Thursday morning assigns one.
