Eight people, including two children aged nine and ten, have died after a three-storey apartment building in Brooklyn collapsed into an excavation pit beside it, New York City officials said on Thursday. Six victims were found dead in the rubble and two more died later in hospital.
The building at 1321 Flatbush Avenue in the Flatbush neighbourhood came down at about 4pm on Wednesday, 11 November, while construction workers were digging at the lot next door. It fell into the open excavation and tore a wall from the residential block beside it, exposing a staircase, closets and a bedroom. Eighteen people were injured, including four firefighters who led the rescue effort.
The fire department ended rescue operations on Thursday afternoon after the last victim was freed, having determined that no one else remained trapped. More than 250 firefighters and emergency workers had worked through the night and through torrential rain to reach survivors.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the city would examine five companies associated with the construction site next door and about 100 more sites connected with those entities, with municipal inspectors fanning out across the city. “If there is anyone or any entity operating in this city that bears responsibility for what happened, we will hold them fully accountable,” Mamdani said.
The cause of the collapse has not yet been determined, and officials say they are looking into the possibility of criminal charges. The excavation work began earlier this year, and a notice filed by a construction company in September said the earthwork included “rock blasting”. City records also show the neighbouring project had drawn violations, and three other addresses on the same side of the street were ordered vacated as a precaution until safety inspections could be carried out.
The building, constructed in 1930, held four flats above a ground-floor shop and was home to several immigrant families, the mayor said. Police identified the dead, who came from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Trinidad and included two construction workers. The two children were named as Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, aged nine, and her cousin Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, aged ten.
Sources: Reuters, “New York City building collapse kills 8; mayor expands probe” (https://www.reuters.com/world/new-york-city-building-collapse-kills-8-mayor-expands-probe-2026-11-12/); Associated Press, “NYC ends search after Brooklyn building collapse kills 8, orders inspections” (https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-safety-codes/nyc-orders-inspections-after-brooklyn-building-collapse-kills-8).
