Zohran Mamdani orders over 160 inspections in Brooklyn collapse inquiry

Survivors of the Brooklyn building collapse described Friday seeing neighbors leave on stretchers, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani said inspections had been ordered for over 160 related sites across the city.

The three-story building fell Wednesday while workers were excavating next door, killing eight people, including two children and two construction workers.

The city said 18 people were hurt, four of them firefighters.

Mamdani said the inspections involve sites associated with six entities connected to the neighboring construction and demolition project, an increase from an earlier count. Authorities would pursue any evidence of criminality "to the fullest extent of the law," he said.

"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.

Mamadou Mouctar Balde said he went grocery shopping Wednesday. His pregnant wife stayed behind with their two roommates: Barry Mamadou was cooking, while Ndiaye Mamadou slept on the couch.

Balde said he came back about five minutes later and initially thought the crowd of emergency personnel and neighbors had assembled after a traffic accident.

"I didn't see my wife. I didn't see my friends," Balde said.

His wife, Fatoumata Binta Bah, is six months pregnant and survived nearly 2 1/2 hours beneath wood and brick before rescuers pulled her out. Balde said both she and their unborn child are doing well.

His roommates died in the collapse. First responders recovered Ndiaye Mamadou, 31, and Barry Mamadou, 23, from the wreckage. Their family said the Guinean nationals had come to the U.S. from Conakry. Their uncle called on the city and the Guinean community to seek justice.

Police named six other people among the dead: Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9, Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10, Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, Gabriel Siguencia, Edgar Sapon and Jose Luis Caguana Cosquillo. Other victims came from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Trinidad, Mamdani said.

Ciahola Lawrence had dozed off next door at 1323 Flatbush Ave. A thump awakened her as the wall between the buildings was torn away. "Something said, 'Open your eyes,' because I turned off my light, and when I opened my eyes, there was just light everywhere," she said.

Video recorded by a security camera above her door shows Lawrence descending a stairway hand in hand with a firefighter, with piles of wreckage below, The Associated Press reported. "As they're taking me, evacuating me from the building, I could see my neighbors coming out on stretchers," Lawrence said.

She sobbed in her husband's arms. "We didn't deserve this," she said. Lawrence said the neighboring work had brought constant disruption and loud thumping, adding that "you would hear that thumping and movement in your soul."

Another woman who lives nearby told the AP that she and other residents blamed construction vibrations for cracks that appeared in their apartment walls.

Patricia Starek, a Flatbush resident for 26 years, asked BBC News, "How does a building just fall into a pit?"

Contractor Mordechai "Marty" Waisbrod notified the city that excavation would start in September and include rock blasting, records show. Permit applications showed plans to excavate below 15 feet. Waisbrod has not responded to phone messages and emails the AP sent to one of his Brooklyn-based businesses, the agency said.

In March, the Department of Buildings ordered work halted after inspectors found the demolition site lacked sufficient overhead protection, such as netting. Inspectors found demolition had resumed against that order in April, but work was allowed to continue once the problems were fixed, Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said.

New York officials, including building inspectors and prosecutors, are investigating. They have not determined what caused the collapse. Tigani said his office is conducting "an exhaustive investigation."

"We're looking at the entire history," he said.