Brooklyn partial building collapse l What we know

All right, now at five, breaking news in Brooklyn, a building collapsed in Flatbush, a massive emergency operation underway right now for anyone potentially trapped in that pile of brick and rubble. Good evening. Thanks for being with us. I'm Steve Lacey. And I'm Natasha Verma. Terrifying building collapse and now a desperate race against time to search for survivors. All right. Our coverage continues with Dan Rice over the scene. Dan, we're going to pick up where we just left off a moment ago. Obviously, this is a horrifying scene here. A massive building collapse in Flatbush, Brooklyn. We're told a number of people have been removed from the rubble, being treated. We do see a number of firefighters, emergency response on scene. Walk us through the response here. It's a big one. It looks like they are still potentially looking for people who may be trapped in the rubble. That is correct, Steve. What you're looking at down there is a construction site. That's that fenced off area you see down here below street level, the fencing around it. We see a piece of machinery down there as well. And the first calls came in around four o'clock this afternoon that partial building collapse had occurred. Now, what led to the collapse, that is not known at this time. We are hearing at least one piece of a building over here. You can see a three-story building here. It looks like a business on the first floor. Apartments on the second floor. The one wall there has fallen down into that construction site. It's unclear yet if there was a building in between the one you're looking at and the construction site itself. But when the firefighters arrived, they found a massive pile of debris that they are searching through. As Steve and Natasha told you, there are reports of numerous injuries at the site. at this time, but no confirmation at this point if anybody else is trapped under that debris. But you're watching the fire department's response down there. They are treating the scene as if they can find somebody underneath that debris. You see them feverishly working at the site down there, moving everything brick by brick, all by hand as they try to search for any other signs of life that may be underneath that debris down there. Again, you see the piece of construction equipment down here by the corner of that building. It's massive. Yeah, Dan, talk a little bit about how risky and tricky of a situation this is with a rescue operation happening underway, but also the fact that that building to the side might be unstable. Yes, and that's the thing that they're trying to work over here, is trying to make sure they don't create any other problems with the structures around this building. I would imagine that the building on the left side of your screen, that building has probably been evacuated at this point, again, not confirmed. But it appears that obviously something was unstable next to this building that led to that collapse. And, again, firefighters, their big task is to be as careful as possible because you don't know what else could collapse at this point. But, again, I just emphasize, you see them there going hand by, with their hands, brick by brick, trying to move the debris as quickly as they can. And noticing as we're talking here, a little bit of smoke coming up. From beneath that debris as well, not clear yet if there's something going on with that smoke, if it's just dust or something else that happened down there. But the other thing I noticed as we're talking is a large crowd also gathering on the sidewalks here. You can see numerous residents and people in the area are standing by watching what's going on down here. So clearly a very hectic, chaotic scene down here, Steve and Natasha, as crews try to go through that debris to make sure nobody else is trapped. A lot has changed since this call came in, I believe just around 4 o'clock this afternoon of a building collapse. You can see a lot of people there, Dan, as you mentioned, have been gathering, watching this whole situation, the police presence and firefighters, just so many crews out there too. Have you seen anyone brought out of the rubble since the time that you've been over this scene, Dan? At this point, we have not seen them bring anybody out. We've had those numerous ambulances on the scene, but I have not seen them bring anybody out of the debris yet. Again, what's concerning me a little bit is some of that smoke we see in the center of the video there. Right. So I'm not clear where that's coming from. But just to the left of that smoke, you can also see a large concentration of firefighters also down there working in that area of the debris. So we'll have to keep our eye on this and see if they do bring anybody out of there or what the situation is. What sort of perimeter have they set up? Are they trying to get people in the nearby buildings out of there, too? Are they preventing people, obviously, from coming near this? site of this collapse, you know, sort of walk us through the big picture in the surrounding neighborhood about what's happening with all the people who live near this. So the immediate area, you definitely have the closures going on down here. I'm trying to get my bearings there a little bit. That is Flatbush Avenue that goes from top to center or top center to bottom center of your video. The street that comes in on an angle, that's Bedford. So the area where Bedford and Flatbush come together, you see the yellow tape, you see the firefighters down there sectioning all that off. We have not seen if they've been evacuating these buildings, but you notice it is getting dark out at this point, and this building here seems to be completely dark inside, I would have to imagine. No confirmation yet. Well, that building has probably been evacuated. People are being kept from that side of the street, but as we saw on the west side of the street over here, you have everybody still being allowed in the area, but a large group has gathered on the sidewalk over here.