Survivors of the deadly Brooklyn building collapse recall shock, terror and grief

NEW YORK -- One man's pregnant wife was pulled alive from the rubble, while two of his roommates perished. A woman living next door woke from a nap to bright daylight flooding her bedroom because her apartment wall was suddenly gone.

Survivors of the Brooklyn apartment building collapse that killed eight people wept as they recounted their terror and grief during a news conference Friday.

New York officials, from building inspectors to prosecutors, say they're investigating what caused the three-story building to come crashing down as workers were digging at an adjacent construction site.

Those who lost family, neighbors and their homes demanded answers.

“As they’re taking me, evacuating me from the building, I could see my neighbors coming out on stretchers,” said Ciahola Lawrence, whose apartment building next to the one that collapsed had a shared wall ripped away, exposing an abyss of dust and debris below.

“We didn’t deserve this,” said Lawrence, who sobbed in her husband's arms as she spoke with reporters.

Among the dead were two children, ages 9 and 10, according to city officials. Another 18 people were injured, including four firefighters.

Mamadou Mouctar Balde stepped out to buy groceries Wednesday, leaving his pregnant wife and two roommates, 31-year-old Mamadou N’Diaye and 23-year-old Mamadou Barry, at home. Barry was cooking and N’Diaye was sleeping on the couch, he said.

He returned to find firefighters, police and neighbors gathering outside and assumed there had been a traffic accident. Then a woman told him a building had collapsed.

“I didn’t see my wife. I didn’t see my friends,” Balde recalled, a tear streaking his cheek. “I no longer knew where I am.”

First responders found the bodies of N’Diaye and Barry while combing the wreckage. Balde's wife, Fatoumata Bah, was pulled alive from the rubble. He said she and their unborn child were doing OK.

N’Diaye and Barry were Guinean nationals who came to the U.S. about five years ago from Conakry, the capital of the West African nation. Their uncle said their family is heartbroken.

“We ask the city and the Guinean community to stand for us, to have a justice for this tragedy,” he said.

Other victims came from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Trinidad, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.

New York police identified the others who died as Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9; Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31; Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10; Gabriel Siguencia, 22; Edgar Sapon, 26; and Jose Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26.

Ahmed Tigani, commissioner of New York's Department of Buildings, said Friday that his office is conducting “an exhaustive investigation” of the Brooklyn collapse.

The city has ordered inspections at more than 160 sites in New York that are associated with six entities linked to the construction and demolition site next to the fallen building, Mamdani said, significantly raising an earlier count of sites subject to renewed scrutiny.

“I think it is always an outrage when eight New Yorkers lose their lives, when 18 New Yorkers are hospitalized, and when families are shattered as a result of all of this,” Mamdani said.

If investigators uncover “any evidence of criminality,” Mamdani said, “it is one that we follow through to the fullest extent of the law.”

One witness who works across the street said he watched bricks fall minutes before the disaster. A woman in a neighboring building said she and fellow residents blamed vibrations from the construction for cracks that appeared in their apartment walls.

Lawrence said the construction work had been a source of constant disruption, producing noises so loud that “you would hear that thumping and movement in your soul.”

A security camera above Lawrence’s door recorded video of her apartment’s shared wall and the building next door collapsing in a clattering rumble and a thick cloud of dust. Inside her apartment, a closet filled with hanging clothes and bags was exposed to the outside.

The security video shows Lawrence leaving her damaged home with a firefighter, who held her hand as they descended a stairway overlooking mounds of wreckage below.

“This feeling is indescribable,” Lawrence said. “I was right there.”

Zariah Coleman, who lived in the building next to the one that collapsed, was concerned about her cat. She said Friday that she too had felt the building shake because of the construction.

“I just really hope they come and get our cat,” Coleman said in tears. “He’s hiding from them, and I think he’s scared.”

Rescue operations ended Thursday after crews spent more than a day searching for victims beneath debris removed with power saws, pickaxes and an excavator.

Building records show there were four apartments on the upper two floors and a commercial unit on the ground floor of the collapsed building.

The surrounding blocks along Flatbush Avenue, a busy Brooklyn thoroughfare, are tightly packed with older brick buildings and a few newly built apartment complexes. A mix of Caribbean and Mexican restaurants reflects the diversity of the neighborhood.

A one-story building was demolished earlier this year on the construction site next to the collapsed building. Records show a contractor, Mordechai “Marty” Waisbrod, notified the city that excavation would begin in September and would include rock blasting. The contractor has not responded to phone messages left and emails sent to one of his Brooklyn-based businesses.

Permit applications indicated plans to dig below 15 feet (4.5 meters).

A stop work order was issued in March after inspectors concluded the demolition site lacked adequate overhead protection such as netting to protect neighboring buildings and pedestrians, according to the city's Department of Buildings.

In April, inspectors found that the demolition work had resumed in violation of the stop work order, the department said. Work was allowed to continue after the problems were corrected, Tigani, the city buildings commissioner said Friday.

“We’re looking at the entire history,” he said, “and if there are additional things we need to see, that will be part of the investigation.”

The Brooklyn collapse was the second high-profile structural problem with a building in New York in the past five months. In July, several buildings in Manhattan were evacuated after support columns buckled inside a skyscraper that once was the headquarters of Pfizer.

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Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press journalists Jennifer Peltz in New York and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed.