Zwei Tote und 17 Verletzte bei Wohngebäude-Einsturz in Brooklyn

“We do not know how many people are still in the collapse zone,” said Fire Department representative Bonsignore at the scene in Flatbush.

A three-story residential building in the New York neighborhood of Little Haiti collapsed without warning on Wednesday afternoon, leaving two people dead and 17 others injured, four of them critically, BILD reported.

The 1930 structure housed commercial businesses on the ground floor beneath the apartments. More than 250 emergency personnel from the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) responded to the scene, deploying search dogs, saws, drones, and specialized tools to dig through the rubble, according to BILD.

Four victims sustained life-threatening injuries, and seven of the injured are children, Bonsignore said. Two and a half hours after the collapse, crews pulled a dust-covered person alive from the debris.

Excavation work for a planned nine-story apartment building was underway directly next to the collapsed structure, following the demolition of a smaller building on the adjacent lot. Officials have not yet determined an official cause for the collapse, and investigators must establish whether the adjacent construction compromised the foundation of the residential building, BILD reported.

The collapse also destroyed a wall of the neighboring building, leaving interior household furnishings exposed to the street. “I heard a rumbling, it sounded like a jackhammer,” Ricci R., a 52-year-old deli employee, told BILD. “Then the air was suddenly full of dust. Chaos reigned.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised assistance for the families affected by the disaster. Flatbush, historically known as Little Haiti, is a culturally diverse residential district characterized by Caribbean, African American, Latin American, and Pakistani communities.

An official cause for the building failure remains under investigation.