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With search for victims over, NYC officials look to what caused fatal building collapse

Ryan Kost

Catalina Gonella

Brittany Kriegstein

and

David Brand

Published Nov 13, 2026 at 6:30 a.m. ET

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An image of a building shorn in half by Wednesday's collapse

Catalina Gonella/Gothamist

Ryan Kost

Catalina Gonella

Brittany Kriegstein

and

David Brand

Published Nov 13, 2026 at 6:30 a.m. ET

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It was a mild Veterans Day afternoon, and Katie Stevens, a teacher, had the day off. She’d left her windows open to let the cool fall air into her Flatbush apartment as she did her laundry.

At about 4 p.m., she heard what sounded like a car crash. A few minutes later came the sirens and then helicopters overhead.

Just down the block, near the corner of Bedford and Flatbush Avenues, a three-story apartment building had collapsed into a lot that construction workers had been excavating for a new development. Nearly all of the building had caved into the lot, shearing off the side of the neighboring building, exposing a stairway, a closet full of clothes and a bedroom set.

As Stevens approached the scene, she found a family crying on the sidewalk: “We may need everything right now,” they told her.

Fatalities in Brooklyn building collapse

The New York Police Department has identified the following people — six adults and two children — as those killed in Wednesday's building collapse:

Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9
Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10
Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31
Ndiaye Mamadou, 31
Barry Mamadou, 23
Gabriel Ariolfo Siguencia Yupa, 22
Edgar Sapon, 26
Jose Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26

Another 18 people were injured. The FDNY said Thursday that its operations at the site had completed, and there were no further victims.

In the hours that followed, more than 250 firefighters and emergency service providers responded to the scene. Construction workers who had barely escaped themselves turned back to dig victims out of the rubble, Mayor Zohran Mamdani would later say. Councilmember Farah Louis described infants and toddlers being carried out on stretchers.

By Thursday afternoon, eight people were dead, including two children, and 18 others were injured. One person remained in critical condition. The rescue operation continued as a storm soaked the area in rain. By 4 p.m just as skies were clearing again, the FDNY declared the search and rescue operation over.

The scene where a building in Flatbush collapsed Wednesday

Brittany Kriegstein / Gothamist

City officials said they began an investigation immediately after the collapse, one of the worst such disasters in recent city history. Gothamist reported Thursday that the developer of the site had a record for cutting corners on the project, according to records from the city buildings department.

The agency had issued a stop work order at the lot during demolition of an existing one-story building in March after determining that contractors had failed to install required safety precautions, including netting and sheds, officials said. A month later, a buildings inspector found the owners had continued demolition work in violation of the order and issued another penalty.

The five entities involved in the construction project are tied to about 100 others across the city, the mayor said, and building inspectors were beginning sweeps of those sites.

“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.

In the immediate aftermath of the collapse, families gathered with their neighbors and loved ones on the sidewalk near the place that was once their home. Stevens, the teacher, said she took one young boy to a nearby clothing store to use the restroom. He kept asking her when he could go back home.

“I don't know, love,” Stevens recalled telling him. “But you are safe. Your family is safe. You're gonna be okay.”

Anderson Velez said he got a panicked phone call from his wife at home after he arrived for a painting job in the Bronx. She was screaming, he said, begging rescue workers to pull their two sons from the rubble of their Brooklyn apartment building, which had collapsed minutes earlier.

All three survived, but his 9-year-old son was in intensive care after undergoing surgery on his skull and his wife has serious injuries to her ribs, spine and collar bone, he said Thursday. Velez provided Gothamist with video of his apartment as the building collapsed.

“I am still in shock,” Velez said in the small lobby of a Brooklyn hotel the city is using to house people displaced by the disaster. “The truth is, I’m trying to be strong for my son, but I feel terrible.”

The Red Cross opened a reception center at a nearby YMCA for residents displaced by the destruction. At least seven households registered, though many spent their night on the sidewalks, wrapped in blankets, waiting for word about their loved ones.

The city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, described coming across a man on the sidewalk who appeared to be staring into space. The man was trying to find his wife. And so Williams and the local pastors asked if they might pray with him. He agreed, and they did.

“And so it was just amazing when his wife was found and taken out alive,” Williams said. “I'm hoping that that blessing, that miracle continues.”

But many were still left waiting.

On Thursday morning, rescuers continued the search as the community looked on. A demolition excavator worked through the rubble, piling the debris on one end of the lot — a mattress, a refrigerator and wood floor panels. Clothing and dozens of music records lay scattered across the site.

One woman collapsed to the ground after learning her husband was among the dead. “My husband, he died,” she yelled in Spanish.

“We’ve been waiting here all night. We went to four hospitals, and they haven’t given us any information,” Luis Siguencia said of his son, 22-year-old construction worker Gabriel Ariolfo Siguencia Yupa, who had recently arrived from Ecuador.

“He wanted to get ahead,” Luis Siguencia said. “Because we all come here with the dream of getting ahead. He had his papers and everything.”

It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon that the Ecuadorean consulate general could confirm Gabriel had died in the collapse.

Kayla Chimborazo, who said she was Gabriel's stepsister, said her family spent the night “jumping from hospital to hospital, showing pictures, telling his name, his date of birth, to see if anybody has him.”

“We didn't even get a chance to see him,” Chimborazo said. “Even if there was that one possibility that he was still alive, we didn’t get to see him.”

Chimborazo described her stepbrother as “a sweet soul,” who was working to be able to provide for his wife and son in Ecuador. Chimborazo said she'd just seen him two weeks ago, at a family church gathering in New Jersey.

“He was really stepping up and starting a new start in life,” she said.

José Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26, another construction worker from Ecuador, was also among the dead, the consulate reported.

His friend, Segundo Iza, stood vigil at the site of the collapse Thursday. He said he and Caguana Cosquillo had grown up together in Ambato, Ecuador. They’d met playing soccer.

Iza said his friend had moved to the U.S. four or five years ago. He had one son and another child on the way.

“He was someone who came here to achieve many dreams, to find better days for our children and our parents,” Iza said. “So it’s sad that our friend died here in New York.”

Eventually, the storm moved in, and with it, a heavy rain. The mayor spoke to reporters under a tent.

“These were 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,” Mamdani said. “ Let us continue to hold close those who have been plunged into unimaginable grief and pray for a full and rapid recovery for every New Yorker injured.”

The FDNY said late Thursday afternoon rescue operations had completed, and that it had determined there were no further victims.

An aunt to two of the men confirmed dead, Mamadou Bhoye N’diaye and Mamadou Bhoye Barry, gathered with her family that evening and grieved at the news.

“Right now my emotions are not good,” Kadidiatou Diallo said. “I just lost my nephews.”

Charles Lane contributed reporting.

Tagged

brooklyn

public safety

Ryan Kost

Ryan Kost is a reporter on the day-of news desk, where he covers breaking news and writes enterprise stories about jails, courts, prosecutors and government accountability. His work focuses on the public institutions that shape life in New York. Before joining the newsroom, he lead a multi-part investigation with Columbia Journalism Investigations and New York Focus into how New York prosecutors handle wrongful conviction claims. He's also been a staff writer at The San Francisco Chronicle, The Associated Press and The Oregonian. Got a tip? Signal: ryankost.20

Catalina Gonella

Brittany Kriegstein

Twitter

Brittany Kriegstein covers all breaking news around New York City, with a focus on crime and gun violence. Got a tip? Email Brittany at [email protected].

David Brand

David is a reporter covering housing for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 908-310-3960.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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