At least one person has lost their life, another remains in critical condition, and several others have been left trapped this Wednesday following the collapse of a three-story building in the Flatbush neighborhood, in the New York district of Brooklyn.
The collapse of the construction occurred shortly after 4:00 p.m. (local time) near the intersection between Bedford and Flatbush avenues, according to police sources and as published by the newspaper "The New York Times".
The building collapsed onto a pit belonging to a neighboring construction site, tearing away the façade of the homes and leaving the property’s internal structure exposed.
Police sources have confirmed the death of a man at the scene of the incident itself, while emergency services have transported a second affected person in critical condition to Kings County Hospital.
Dozens of firefighters from the New York Fire Department (FDNY, for its English-language acronym) have moved to the area, who work manually among the wreckage of the building to locate and rescue the people who continue to be trapped.
Among those rescued is a young girl who has been evacuated on a stretcher and in a conscious state by the aid teams, according to what the city’s ombudsman, Jumaane Williams, said on the scene of the collapse.
According to the records consulted by the aforementioned outlet, the damaged building was built in 1930 and housed four homes. The New York City Department of Buildings had issued last March an order to suspend demolition work on the adjacent lot, imposing a fine of $10,000 (€9,000) on the property after verifying that the existing structure had been completely brought down without the necessary permits.