Brooklyn Collapse Rescue Ends With 8 Dead as City Probe Widens to About 100 Sites and DA Examines Criminal Conduct

Since the three-story building on Flatbush Avenue collapsed into an adjacent construction pit around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 11, the story has moved from rescue to accountability. The FDNY finished its search just after 3:30 p.m. Thursday and found no one else alive or missing.

The site has been handed to the Department of Buildings and the NYPD. A full stop-work order remains in place.

The victims

The NYPD has identified all eight dead. Two were children: Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9, and Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10.

The adults were Gabriel Siguencia, 22; Mamadou Barry, 23; José Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26; Edgar Sapon, 26; Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31; and Mamadou Ndiaye, 31.

Two of the dead were construction workers, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said. City Councilwoman Farrah Louis said crews pulled out workers who had been on site Wednesday night, which raised the toll Thursday morning.

Six victims were pronounced dead at the scene, four of them recovered overnight. Two died at the hospital. The injury count varies by account: the FDNY and the mayor cited 17 injured, while other officials said 18, with three or four firefighters among them. One person remained in critical condition Thursday morning, according to the mayor.

Mamdani described the dead as "our friends and our neighbors, parents and children, young families building their lives in our city, and immigrants from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and beyond."

What investigators are looking at

The Department of Buildings and NYPD are trying to determine why the ground gave way. The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office is separately examining whether any criminal conduct contributed. No charges have been filed.

The developers hold active permits for excavation and foundation work tied to a new building project. City records show the site was cited for violations months before the collapse. Those were corrected, and work was allowed to resume in May.

Investigators have not determined whether that work contributed to the collapse. That is the developers' strongest position for now: they had permits, they cured the violations, and the city let them proceed.

Mamdani said officials are inspecting about 100 locations across the city linked to the site, and he vowed to hold anyone responsible "fully accountable."

He also said he was troubled to learn that cracks in the building's facade had been reported during the permitting process for work on the neighboring lot. A local councilmember and a tenant organizer have described past problems with the building's owner. Neither the owner nor the architect or general contractor has commented publicly. Messages left for all three went unanswered Wednesday.

It is unclear what, if anything, happened after those cracks were recorded. Three neighboring buildings were vacated Wednesday until engineers can certify them safe.

A wider argument about housing

Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, said the collapse exposes "the cracks within our social safety net for all New Yorkers." He argued that immigrant families are often pushed into unsafe, overcrowded housing by soaring costs.

Awawdeh said the dead "deserve justice" and called on elected officials and the justice system to hold individuals accountable. He also asked that every person, regardless of immigration status, be able to reach any funds raised for the families.

His point about housing costs is his own framing. Investigators have not tied the collapse to overcrowding or to any tenant conditions.

Another collapse the same night

About three and a half hours after Flatbush, a 122-year-old building at the 100 block of East Galena Boulevard in Aurora, Illinois, partially collapsed at roughly 6:37 p.m. Wednesday. The exterior wall and a scaffolding structure fell onto the street.

Three people suffered minor injuries and are expected to recover, city officials said. A driver pulling out of a parking spot swerved clear of the falling debris.

Crews evacuated the building and used targeted water operations to bring down the unsound sections in a controlled collapse. The building, built in 1904, was mostly vacant apart from a barber shop on the ground floor.

The cause is unknown. Early evidence did not tie Wednesday's collapse to a 2025 incident at the same address, when part of the brick facade fell onto nearby train tracks. No one has linked Aurora to Brooklyn, and the two appear to be separate events.

What comes next

The Department of Buildings and NYPD now control the Flatbush site, and recovery operations continue. Investigators must establish whether the excavation, the earlier violations, the cracks flagged in permitting, or something else brought the building down. The DA's inquiry will turn on that answer.