NEW YORK — The rescue phase of the Flatbush building collapse is over. The Fire Department of New York ended rescue operations at the collapsed three-story building at 1321 Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn on Thursday afternoon, after determining that no more victims remained in the wreckage, and the site was handed over to the Department of Buildings and the Police Department, according to city officials cited in local reporting of the department's announcement. The Associated Press reported that firefighters ended rescue operations on Thursday after the last victim was freed from the rubble.
Source: Associated Press via FireRescue1
Awaaz Punjab reported on November 12 that the death toll from Wednesday's collapse had risen to eight, with 19 people hurt and the search still going on. The confirmed picture has now settled: eight dead, 18 injured, all eight victims identified, and the search closed. Read our earlier report
The building, a 1930 mixed-use structure with four apartments on its upper two floors and a commercial unit at street level, collapsed at about 4:01 p.m. on Wednesday, November 11, falling into the open excavation of the construction site next door at 2625 Bedford Avenue, near Newkirk Avenue in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said the first emergency call reached the FDNY at approximately 4:01 p.m. Wednesday. About 250 firefighters and EMS personnel worked the pile through the night, using power saws and pickaxes, pulling four victims out in the early hours of Thursday before excavators removed larger chunks of wreckage so searchers could reach deeper into the pit.
The eight victims, and the two children among them
Police have identified all eight people killed, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said. The adults were Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31; Ndiaye Mamadou, 31; Barry Mamadou, 23; Gabriel Siguencia, 22; Edgar Sapon, 26; and Jose Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26. Two children, cousins aged 9 and 10, were also killed; Awaaz Punjab does not name minor victims. Six of the dead were recovered from the rubble and two died after being taken to hospital, the mayor said. Two of the eight were construction workers. Mamdani said victims came from Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador and Trinidad, and the Colombian consulate in New York confirmed the two children and one adult were Colombian. The Consulate of Ecuador confirmed Caguana Cosquillo and Siguencia were Ecuadorian; Carlos Caguana told WNBC-TV his brother Jose, who was working at the construction site, was the sole provider for his family and leaves a pregnant wife and a young child.
Source: Associated Press via FireRescue1
Of the 18 injured, one person remained in critical condition in the latest city update, and most of those still in hospital were described as stable. Firefighters pulled a pregnant woman from the rubble on Wednesday and hoisted her on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance, the AP reported, and some construction workers who survived joined firefighters in digging out survivors.
What witnesses saw in the minutes before the fall
James Williams, who works at a deli across the street, told the AP he heard loud banging at the site all day Wednesday and looked outside to see bricks falling: 'Two minutes later, the building collapsed.' He saw a woman exposed on a staircase of the neighbouring building as the structure crumbled. Hairstylist Brigitte Anama said customers and stylists at a nearby salon ran onto the sidewalk as dust filled the street, and watched emergency workers pull people, including what appeared to be a child, from the rubble. Dervie Mapp, who lives along the construction site, said she and other residents had complained for months about the project and about vibrations they blamed for cracks in their apartment walls; her landlord brought engineers in, but residents never received an inspection report, she said.
The city's early finding — and the criminal question
What is solid
- The Department of Buildings is investigating, and its commissioner, Ahmed Tigani, said workers were excavating the empty lot next door when the building buckled (AP).
- Local reporting of the department's written position says the DOB has put an early finding in writing that unsafe construction work at the excavation next door brought the 1930 building down.
- The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office has opened a criminal investigation into whether criminal conduct contributed to the collapse (New York Times, reported Friday); no criminal responsibility has been established and no charges have been announced.
What is only claimed
- The formal cause of the collapse has NOT been determined: the AP reported investigators have not determined what caused it, and construction safety expert Glenn Corbett of John Jay College said it is far too early to know — it could be a design flaw, a construction flaw, or a failure of the excavation shoring. Whether the excavation work caused or contributed to the collapse is the question investigators must still resolve.
City records reported by the AP show the excavation's history was troubled before Wednesday. A stop-work order was issued in March after inspectors concluded the building next door was being demolished without adequate overhead protection, such as netting, to shield neighbouring buildings. In April, inspectors found demolition work had resumed in violation of that stop-work order; work was later allowed to continue after the problems were corrected, the Buildings Department said in an emailed statement. Excavation permits for the adjoining site were issued in September 2026, and records show contractor Mordechai 'Marty' Waisbrod notified the city that excavation would begin in September and include rock blasting, with permit applications indicating plans to dig below 15 feet (4.5 metres). Engineering drawings showed plans to brace the walls at the edge of the site. The AP said phone and email messages were left at one of Waisbrod's Brooklyn-based businesses and for the engineer, Jieming Wang, and an inspector listed on the project, with no response reported yet. Being named in permit records is not a finding of fault.
Source: Associated Press via FireRescue1
100 linked sites to be inspected; neighbouring homes vacated
'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 at a news conference. The mayor ordered inspections at about 100 construction sites linked to five entities tied to the neighbouring project. Buildings officials issued full vacate orders for 1323, 1325 and 1327 Flatbush Avenue and a full stop-work order on the adjacent excavation site, according to local reporting, and the collapsed building's address was placed under a full vacate order as unsafe to enter. City agencies are arranging help for families displaced by the disaster.
This was the second high-profile structural failure in New York in five months — in July, several Manhattan buildings were evacuated after support columns buckled inside a skyscraper that once housed Pfizer's headquarters. The Flatbush case now tests how the city polices excavation work squeezed between older brick buildings on busy avenues like Flatbush Avenue, where Caribbean and Mexican restaurants line blocks of tightly packed older housing.
What happens next
The Buildings Department and the Brooklyn District Attorney's investigation continues, and the possibility of criminal charges has not been ruled out, according to BBC reporting cited in local coverage. Ahead: the 100-site inspection sweep, the formal cause determination — which expert Glenn Corbett warns will take time — and the first court filings if prosecutors or families bring them. Awaaz Punjab will update this story as officials release findings; our earlier report on the collapse and the rising toll remains linked above.