6-story residential building partially collapses in NYC; ‘No one under the pile’

NEW YORK — A portion of a six-story residential building in New York City collapsed on Monday, and authorities searching through rubble determined that no victims were found beneath the debris.

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A corner of the 46-unit building, located in the Morris Heights neighborhood of the Bronx, collapsed to the sidewalk, WABC-TV reported.

No victims found, NYFD says

Update 11:57 p.m. EST Dec. 11: Officials with the New York City Fire Department said they did not find any victims under the rubble of a six-floor apartment building that partially collapsed Monday afternoon, WABC-TV reported.

“Miraculously, no one was severely injured at the partial building collapse,” NYFD Commissionre Laura Kavanagh, tweeted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “For hours, they searched for anyone who may have been trapped or injured. We have confirmed that no one was under that pile.”

In a social media post, the fire department said that two people sustained minor injuries.

“For hours, FDNY members searched for potential victims of the partial building collapse at 1915 Billingsley Terrace,” the fire department wrote on X. “They have gone through a large pile of debris, 12 feet high in spots, and found no victims. Two civilians sustained minor injuries during the evacuation.”

‘We’re searching for life’

Update 9:28 p.m. EST Dec. 11: During a news conference Monday night, New York City Fire Department Chief said the search was ongoing, the New York Times reported.

“We don’t know if anybody is trapped under there,” Hodgens told reporters. “Hopefully not.”

Hodgens said that a cause for the collapse has yet to be determined.

“We’re searching for life,” he told reporters. “That’s our main objective at this time.”

Maridelsa Fana, 50, a school bus driver who lives on the third floor, was waiting at a traffic light when the building collapsed, the Times reported. She said she was looking for a place to park her empty bus when she looked in her rearview mirror and saw debris falling. She told the newspaper that the sound of the partial collapse sounded like a large explosion.

“People said this place is going to fall apart piece by piece,” Fana told the newspaper. “But no one imagined this.”

Original report: Officials with the New York City Fire Department told The New York Times that there are no immediate reports of injuries or fatalities.

Fire officials said that their investigation of the collapse, at 1915 Billingsley Terrace, was in preliminary stages.

Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that firefighters were looking for people who might be trapped.

The New York City Department of Buildings is at the scene investigating, WPIX-TV reported.

Witnesses said they heard loud cracking noises a few minutes before the collapse occurred, according to the television station. That prompted some of the residents to evacuate the building.

The partial collapse happened shortly before 4 p.m. EST, WNBC-TV reported.

“Right now, we have no patients with EMS. But we will presume that there are people under that rubble until we eliminate that possibility,” Kavanagh told reporters during a news conference, according to WPIX. “We have our firefighters literally working by hand to uncover that pile. We have our dogs searching on the pile to help us find hits, and we have EMS and paramedics standing at the ready to pull anybody out. We don’t know for sure anybody is under there, but we always operate under the assumption in an occupied building like this one that there could be until we eliminate that possibility.”

Last month, officials with the Department of Buildings fined the building’s owner $2,400 for “deteriorated and broken mudsills” at the base of scaffolding that wrapped the property. The damage could affect “the structural stability causing a potential collapse,” the fine stated.

According to city records, the building is owned by 1915 Realty, a limited liability company that bought the property in 2004 for $3 million, the Times reported.

The city’s Emergency Management Department issued a request for a structural stability inspection of the site, according to the newspaper.