Crews continued searching on 12 November after firefighters pulled a survivor from the rubble the previous evening. Mayor Zohran Mamdani raised the death toll from 2.
A three-story building collapsed into a construction site in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood on 11 November, killing 8 people and injuring at least 17, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said. Officials said 4 people were critically injured.
The death toll rose from 2 given by city officials at an earlier evening briefing, when they also reported 17 injured. The injured included 7 children and 3 firefighters, officials and the mayor said.
Firefighters were called at about 16:00 New York time on 11 November (01:00 Yerevan time on 12 November). At about 18:30 New York time (03:30 Yerevan time on 12 November), they pulled a survivor from a hole in the rubble, carried the person out on a stretcher and took them to an ambulance.
Officials have ordered residents to evacuate the still-standing buildings previously connected to the collapsed building while the investigation continues, The Guardian reported. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said officials were working with the Buildings Department to investigate 100 other New York City sites connected to the building. The Guardian reported that at least 18 other people sustained serious, nonfatal injuries.
The New York City Fire Department said Thursday afternoon that no further victims remained at the site of the 3-story building’s collapse after crews searched with drones and dogs, France 24 and AFP reported. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said 5 main entities were involved at the site and authorities had begun checking 100 other construction sites associated with them. Officials said the cause remained unclear and no link had been established between earlier construction violations and the collapse.
Crews continued searching at first light on 12 November, and the New York City Fire Department said it remained hopeful of finding survivors. About 250 first responders worked in what Mamdani called “extremely dangerous conditions.” He urged people to stay away; Flatbush Avenue was closed from Clarendon Road to Bedford Avenue.
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Workers brought in an excavator to move larger pieces of wreckage. Rescuers also dug by hand and used drones and dogs. WABC reported that crews used buckets and vacuum trucks to search the rubble. WABC-TV said crews pulled at least 4 survivors, including a pregnant woman, from the wreckage roughly 2 to 2.5 hours after the collapse.
Firefighters continued searching the debris Wednesday night, when officials said they did not know how many people remained at the collapse site. Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said crews did not know how many people might still be in the debris and expected the operation to continue for a long time.
Officials did not immediately know how many people had been home when the building fell. Fire Department Chief John Esposito said the total number missing was unknown and that searching the entire site for potential victims would take several days.
The building at 1321 Flatbush Avenue had a street-level store and apartments above it. It fell into an adjoining excavation at 2625 Bedford Avenue, where a one-story building had been demolished, filling the pit with bricks and wood. A neighboring building remained standing, but a shared wall was torn away, exposing rooms. Ground footage also showed exposed bedrooms and stairwells in an adjacent building.
New York City’s Department of Buildings began investigating the cause and checking the stability of neighboring buildings. The city set up a reception center for affected families at the Flatbush YMCA.
City filings reviewed by Edit USA show an application filed in January 2026 for a 9-story mixed-use building with a cellar on the adjoining lot for owner W6 Facility X LLC. The main application still had open objections from the Buildings Department. Permits for the foundation and excavation support, which holds back soil and neighboring structures during digging, were last updated 9 September.
A city record also shows that an inspector cited demolition contractor N Tech Design of America on 23 April for continuing work under a stop-work order. The inspector compared photographs with ones taken on 20 March, when a one-story building was still standing on the lot. The contractor admitted the Class 1 violation, the most serious category, which carried a $10,000 penalty and was listed as resolved. Officials have not established the cause of the collapse or tied it to the adjoining work.
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