Two Dead, Seven Children Hurt as Flatbush Building Collapses into Construction Pit

A three-story mixed-use building in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood collapsed into an adjacent excavation site Wednesday afternoon, killing two people and injuring at least 17 others, including seven children, as rescue crews continued a dangerous overnight search for anyone still trapped in the rubble.

The structure at 1321 Flatbush Avenue, near the intersection with Bedford Avenue, gave way around 4 p.m. and slid into an open construction pit next door at 2625 Bedford Avenue, where workers had been excavating. The collapse also sheared away a wall of the neighboring building at 1323 Flatbush Avenue, fully exposing apartments and their contents.

FDNY units arrived within a minute of the 4:01 p.m. call. More than 250 firefighters and EMS personnel responded. Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said multiple occupants of the residential building and workers at the construction site were trapped under debris.

“We have 19 patients. Sadly, we have two that are deceased, four that are critical, 12 that are stable, and we also have one firefighter with minor injuries. Of those 19, seven are children,” she told reporters. Officials stressed the numbers could change as the operation continued and that they still did not know how many people might remain in the collapse zone.

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Firefighters were seen pulling survivors from the wreckage, placing them on stretchers and carrying them up ladders. Around 6:30 p.m., crews extracted a living victim from a hole dug into the rubble pile. Search dogs, drones, vacuum trucks and careful hand-digging were used through the night. Bonsignore described the work as extremely dangerous and methodical, warning of the risk of secondary collapse. “This will be a prolonged operation,” she said.

One of the dead was identified by a relative as Jose Luis Caguana, 26, an Ecuadorian immigrant who had lived in the United States for about six years and worked in construction to support his family. Officials had not publicly released the identities or ages of the other victims by early Thursday.

The collapsed building, roughly 96 years old, housed a ground-floor business and apartments above. The neighboring lot had previously contained a one-story structure that was fully demolished; developers had plans for a new mixed-use building there, with applications ranging from three to nine stories. City Buildings Department inspectors were on scene assisting recovery and checking the structural stability of nearby properties. Investigators are examining whether excavation work undermined the older building. Records show prior issues at the construction site, including a resolved stop-work-order violation and concerns about lack of overhead protection for adjacent properties.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the collapse devastating and said the Department of Buildings and law-enforcement partners would lead the probe into its cause. Streets around the site remained closed Thursday morning as the search continued.