The city Building Department conducted a sweeping inspection campaign of roughly 100 construction sites Thursday as it launched an investigation into what caused the deadly building collapse in Brooklyn gets underway.
At least eight people, including two children, died in the collapse, in which a three-story residential building at 1321 Flatbush Ave. collapsed into an adjacent construction site at 2625 Bedford Ave. in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.
“There are five main entities involved with this construction site who are associated with approximately 100 other sites across the city,” Mayor Mamdani said Thursday at a press conference near the site of the collapse. “Our Department of Buildings is commencing sweeps of those sites today.”
A DOB spokesman said the sweep of related construction sites was standard practice after such an incident, and that inspectors could show up at sites that share contractors, engineers, architects or owners with the ill-fated 2625 Bedford Ave. site, in an effort to ensure compliance with safety regulations.
“A tragedy of this magnitude demands a comprehensive and thorough investigation that includes both the construction site and the building which collapsed,” Mamdani said. “That has already begun, with the Department of Buildings and law enforcement leading it.”
Mamdani also praised the FDNY for their quick response to the disaster, noting they arrived on scene less than 60 seconds from the initial 911 call.
“Two-hundred and fifty firefighters and EMS personnel worked tirelessly throughout the evening, the morning, and are continuing now, searching for survivors, rescuing people from the rubble, and tending to the injured,” the mayor said. “Just because we expect this courage from the FDNY does not make it any less extraordinary.”
Rescue efforts were continuing at the site Thursday afternoon.
Residents of 1323 Flatbush Ave. — which lost an exterior wall in the collapse — and of 1325, and 1327 Flatbush Ave. were still under orders to vacate, Mamdani said.
Residents of other buildings further south on Flatbush Ave., who had been displaced shortly after the collapse, have now been allowed back into their homes, the mayor added.
Flatbush Avenue remains closed between Bedford Ave. and Clarendon Road, and the MTA has rerouted the B8, B41, B49, B103, and BM2 bus lines around the area.
The cause of the deadly collapse remains under investigation.
A Daily News review of records found that a contractor involved in construction at the site of the collapse had been cited by NYC for problems related to demolition at the Bedford Ave. location, including violating a stop-work order aimed at halting problematic work, city records reviewed by the Daily News show.
The records reviewed by the News also show the man behind the ownership of the collapsed building, Olufemi Falade, was once imprisoned for ignoring housing violations at his properties. That building,1321 Flatbush Ave., which was adjacent to the construction site, had 98 open violations, including defective doors, unsafe electrical wiring, leaking ceilings, defective fire retardant material, and missing or malfunctioning smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
Construction crews had been in the excavation phase of construction Wednesday when the adjacent building collapsed.