At least two people have been killed and more than 10 others injured after a three-storey residential building collapsed in Brooklyn, New York, with rescue teams continuing efforts to locate possible survivors trapped beneath the debris.
The incident occurred around 4pm on Wednesday at a four-unit apartment building in the Flatbush neighbourhood, which collapsed into an adjoining construction site where excavation work was ongoing.
New York City Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, confirmed the fatalities, saying more than 10 injured victims had been transported to nearby hospitals with conditions ranging from critical to non-life-threatening.
City officials said 19 victims had been accounted for, including seven children, although the number of people who might still be trapped remained uncertain.
New York City Fire Department Commissioner, Lillian Bonsignore, also disclosed that a firefighter sustained minor injuries during the rescue operation.
According to Fire Department Chief, John Esposito, the building, which was constructed in 1930, collapsed into the neighbouring construction site.
He said investigations had commenced to determine the cause of the incident, noting that authorities were yet to establish how many residents and construction workers were present when the building came down.
Emergency responders arrived at the scene within a minute of the collapse, as a firefighting crew already operating in the neighbourhood helped pull the first victims from the rubble.
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Television footage showed rescue workers deploying search dogs and manually clearing debris in buckets as they searched for people who might have survived in pockets beneath the wreckage.
US television station, WABC-TV, reported that at least four people were rescued alive between two and two-and-a-half hours after the collapse, including a pregnant woman.
Esposito, however, warned that the operation could last several days, given the scale of the destruction and uncertainty surrounding the number of missing persons.
He said rescue teams would require several days to thoroughly search the site for possible victims, adding that officials did not yet know the overall number of people unaccounted for.
The Fire Department had earlier reported that four people sustained critical injuries, while six others suffered minor injuries, before additional survivors were pulled from the wreckage.
Authorities said the full number of casualties and those affected by the collapse remained unknown as search and rescue operations continued.