Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. Photo: CityLimitsJunction / Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
Eight people, including two children, were killed when a three-story building collapsed in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood this week, and New York City police have now named all eight victims as the city launches a sweeping investigation into the construction site next door.
The victims were identified on Friday as Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9; Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10; Gabriel Siguencia, 22; Barry Mamadou, 23; Jose Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26; Edgar Sapon, 26; Ndiaye Mamadou, 31; and Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31. Three of the dead were construction workers, according to city officials. The two children were cousins.
A 1930s building falls into an excavation pit
The building at 1321 Flatbush Avenue, a three-story structure built in 1930 with four apartments above a ground-floor store, collapsed at about 4 p.m. on Wednesday and tumbled into the open excavation site beside it at 2625 Bedford Avenue, where workers had been preparing foundations for a planned development.
Six people were pronounced dead at the scene and two more died after being taken to a hospital, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said. Eighteen other people were injured, including 14 civilians and four firefighters, with one person in critical condition.
More than 250 firefighters and emergency workers were deployed to the site, searching through the night with drones and canine units for anyone still trapped beneath the rubble. The city's fire department said rescue operations concluded at 3:37 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, with no more victims found, and the site was turned over to the Department of Buildings and the Police Department.
Flatbush Avenue, a busy thoroughfare through the neighborhood, remained at a standstill on Thursday morning as firefighters picked through the rubble. Officials said it was not immediately known how many people were at home when the building gave way, and the search continued through the night before crews could be certain no one else was buried.
Families grieve in a shaken neighborhood
The collapse shattered a heavily immigrant neighborhood in Flatbush, where residents voiced anger and grief as the death toll climbed. Gabriel Siguencia, 22, an Ecuadorean national, was working overtime at the construction site when the building came down, his stepsister told reporters in a tearful interview.
City Fire Department Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said seven children were among those affected by the collapse. The building's faded facade still carried the letters of its old name, the "Ceasar Building," according to city records.
City widens the investigation
The cause of the collapse has not been determined. Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said workers had been excavating the adjacent lot earlier on Wednesday, but officials have not said whether the digging contributed to the failure.
Mayor Mamdani, who pledged a "full and thorough" investigation, said the city has identified five entities connected to the neighboring construction project and is examining roughly 100 other sites linked to them. The Department of Buildings began citywide sweeps on Thursday.
The tragedy has become a test of New York's building safety oversight, with the focus now on whether excavation work beside an aging residential building was properly monitored — and whether warning signs were missed before the structure gave way.
Sources: Associated Press, The New York Times, Reuters, ABC7 New York.