1 dead, 5 injured in Manhattan parking structure collapse
A four-story parking facility collapsed in New York City's lower Manhattan near Pace University and the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, killing at least one worker and injuring five others who were inside the structure, authorities said.
Emergency personnel using robotic devices after firefighters were pulled back from the fallen structure due to unstable conditions checked the site for any further casualties, but officials said they believed all victims had been accounted for.
No foul play was suspected.
"We have no reason to believe that this was anything other than a structural collapse," City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell told reporters.
Reuters video footage from the scene, in Manhattan's financial district blocks from the World Trade Center and New York Stock Exchange, showed a rescue operation getting underway and multiple cars stacked on top of one another amid crumpled slabs of concrete.
One person was pronounced dead on the scene, four more were taken to area hospitals for injuries and a sixth individual who was hurt declined medical treatment, said John Esposito, chief of fire operations for the New York City Fire Department.
He described all six as workers who were in the parking structure when it collapsed.
"This was an extremely dangerous situation for our firefighters," he told a late-afternoon news briefing. Esposito said firefighters ordered out of the structure had still been inside conducting searches as "the building was continuing to collapse." Read More…
