New York Building Disaster: Two Children Among Eight Victims as Authorities Launch Investigation.

New York authorities on Thursday confirmed that eight people, including two children, were killed after a residential building collapsed a day earlier, triggering an overnight rescue operation by firefighters searching for survivors trapped beneath the rubble.

The three-storey building in Brooklyn collapsed on Wednesday afternoon into an adjoining excavation site where construction workers had been preparing the foundation for a planned development.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, while announcing the updated death toll, described the incident as devastating and disclosed that more than a dozen other people sustained injuries.

One of the victims was 22-year-old Ecuadorian national, Gabriel Siguencia, whose stepsister said he was working overtime at the construction site when the building collapsed.

Speaking tearfully to AFP and other journalists, his 20-year-old stepsister, Kayla Chimborazo, recounted how the family searched several hospitals before receiving confirmation of his death.
“We went from hospital to hospital, trying to find him, showing pictures, but nobody knew anything until they told us he passed,” she said.

She described Gabriel as a kind person who had travelled to the United States to work and support his family in Ecuador.

“He just came here to do work to be able to provide for his family back in Ecuador. He’s just the sweetest person,” she added, noting that he left behind a wife and son.

The New York Times reported that the youngest victim was nine years old, while those who died were nationals of Ecuador, Guatemala and Guinea.

The New York Fire Department announced on Thursday afternoon that no additional victims had been found at the site after emergency responders spent several hours searching the rubble with drones and canine units.

Authorities said the cause of the collapse had not yet been established.
‘Devastating’

The collapsed building was a three-storey structure dating back to 1930, comprising four apartments and a commercial space on the ground floor.
It fell into the neighbouring excavation site, while an adjacent building was left severely damaged, with one of its walls torn away, exposing a staircase, bedroom and a wardrobe filled with clothes.

A 60-year-old shop worker, James Williams, told AFP that he witnessed the collapse after hearing loud banging noises throughout the morning.
He said he noticed smoke and watched bricks falling before the entire building suddenly came down.

“I smelled the smoke from the fumes, and I was watching bricks fall. But to see, like two minutes later, to see the building collapse and fall, it was just devastating,” he said.

Williams added that some people were attempting to escape when the building came down.

“There were people trying to get out … I saw somebody on the side of the staircase, and I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t even really want to think about that,” he said.

Another eyewitness, 14-year-old Kenneilia Reid, told AFP that she noticed dust while walking past the area and turned around to see the building collapse.

“When I was walking by, I started seeing dust all of a sudden, and I was like, what is going on? When I turned my back, I saw the whole building collapse,” she recounted.
‘Fully Accountable’
Documents from the city’s building department reviewed by AFP revealed that the construction site had received a stop-work order in April over potentially dangerous demolition conditions.

However, construction activities reportedly continued, leading to a $10,000 fine against the company involved.

Authorities have not established any connection between the violations and the building collapse.

Mayor Mamdani disclosed that five major entities were involved in the site and that officials had commenced inspections of 100 other construction sites associated with them across the city.

He promised a comprehensive investigation into the incident and vowed that anyone found responsible would be held fully accountable.

Meanwhile, some residents of Flatbush, a predominantly Black neighbourhood where the building collapsed, expressed anger over gentrification and property development following the tragedy.

A 54-year-old businessman, Winston Bowen, told AFP that the incident reflected the prioritisation of financial gains over public safety.

“It’s just all about making money. They didn’t care about the danger,” he said.
(France24)