Two children are among the eight people killed after a three-story apartment building collapsed at 1321 Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, officials said Thursday, as rescuers worked through the night and into the rain in a continued search for possible survivors. Only one of the dead has been publicly identified so far: 26-year-old construction worker Jose Luis Caguana, though sources told The Post that a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl were also among the victims.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said six of the eight died at the scene and two at nearby hospitals, including two construction workers from a neighboring site. He said 18 people were injured, four of them firefighters and 14 civilians, with one listed in critical condition. Mamdani said he had visited victims recovering in hospital before meeting reporters at the scene.S1S2
The building came down at about 4 p.m. on Wednesday, with a business on the ground floor and two residential stories above. It stood next to an excavation site where a single-floor building had been cleared, and owners of that property had been cleared to dig a maximum of 14 feet down, according to a building application. Investigators are expected to examine both the fallen building and the excavation site, though the cause of the collapse was not immediately clear.S1S2
FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said crews had not moved from rescue to recovery, more than 20 hours after the collapse, and would keep searching until there was no hope of finding anyone alive. Heavier excavation equipment was to be used on Thursday to remove larger debris and search beneath it. The city's Environmental Protection department shut water mains to about 100 nearby buildings to support the operation.S1S2