Eight Die and More Than a Dozen Injured in Brooklyn Building Collapse
Eight people died and more than a dozen others sustained injuries in a fatal building collapse in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on Wednesday night, amid torrential rain that hampered search operations, ABC7 New York reported.
The downpour transformed the massive debris field into a slippery, shifting mound composed of wood, glass, cement, and mud. Rescue crews maintained a continuous, deliberate search for signs of life lasting more than 24 hours.
“Until you get to the last piece of debris out of there, or you know that everybody is 100% accounted for, you’re not going to stop,” Jersey City Fire Chief Steve McGill said.
Elite firefighters rescued all known survivors within the first two hours of the disaster. Among them was a woman who is six months pregnant, whom crews saved by tunneling directly into the unstable wreckage.
“The deeper you dig, the more dangerous it’s going to get, because unless you’re taking that debris off the top, you’re going under layers and layers and layers of debris,” McGill said.
McGill compared the site to a house of cards. He said that pulling out the wrong piece risks causing a secondary collapse and endangering personnel working on the site.
First responders could not save everyone trapped in the structure, locating four additional victims overnight who had died amid the ruins.
“If people are going to survive, it’s only going to be for a short time,” said former FDNY Commissioner Tom Von Essen.
Von Essen led the Fire Department of the City of New York through the aftermath of September 11. He emphasized that maintaining hope remains an inherent part of emergency response work, even when facing steep odds.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani addressed reporters regarding the ongoing operations at the site.
“We are lucky in New York City to have the greatest fire department the world has ever seen. And so as long as the fire department determined something is a rescue operation, I have full belief that they are exploring every possible outcome of that,” Mamdani said.
“You hope for the best. You’ll always hope for the best. And you just go in there and you try and rescue as many people as you possibly can without hurting yourself,” McGill said.