Firefighters pulled three more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed building in New York City’s Brooklyn borough on Thursday morning, raising the death toll to five, the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) said.
Seventeen people were taken to hospitals, four of them in critical condition. Seven of the injured are children. It is not yet known whether children are also among the dead.
A total of 250 firefighters took part in the search operation. Throughout the night, they used pickaxes and chainsaws to work their way through piles of rubble, cutting openings in the ruins to pull people out.
The three-story residential building collapsed Wednesday afternoon local time in central Brooklyn, an area made up mainly of residential buildings.
The cause of the collapse will be investigated, but New York City Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani noted that at the time of the incident, construction workers were excavating on an adjacent vacant lot for the construction of a new structure. (PAP)
Source: Nowy Dziennik
