A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
All right, to New York City. As a three-story building in Brooklyn collapsed into a neighboring construction site last night, at least eight people have died, and around two dozen are injured, including several children. Emergency workers are still searching for survivors. We're joined now by reporter Steve Kastenbaum. Steve, tell us more about what happened.
STEVE KASTENBAUM, BYLINE: Well, the New York City Fire Department said they received a call about this collapse in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn just after 4 p.m. yesterday. It's a three-story building. It literally just disappeared in the blink of an eye. It looked like it was completely sheared off. A wall from a neighboring building came down as well, and then you could see into that building where people had been living. There was a closet with clothing still on the hangers on the rods, a bedroom, a staircase. All of that was clearly visible. Rescue workers were searching for survivors all night in very dangerous conditions. Here's Fire Department Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore talking last night about that operation.
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LILLIAN BONSIGNORE: Collapse operations are extremely dangerous. Every move is choreographed and critically important to patient outcomes and member safety. They have been working methodically and have not stopped.
KASTENBAUM: Well, the concern last night was that the structure next door could collapse on them as they were searching for survivors.
MARTÍNEZ: What's been the response so far?
BONSIGNORE: Well, the response last night was really quick. A fire truck happened to be passing nearby while returning from another call. They were on site within a minute of the first 911 call. They began that dangerous work of pulling people out of the rubble. While that was going on, this resident was waiting on the sidewalk for word of his pregnant wife who was inside the building. It wasn't long before she was pulled out and taken to a hospital in critical condition.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: She's still alive. I'm very happy. I'm very happy. I'm very happy. I thank all of you guys (inaudible).
KASTENBAUM: Well, you can see he was very emotional. There are a lot of people still in the hospital this morning. The death toll is at eight, but that could still rise. Around two dozen people were injured. That includes children. And the search and rescue and the recovery operation now transitioning into an investigation into the cause of this collapse.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. So I realized very early then into the investigation, but any understanding, any idea as to why this happened?
KASTENBAUM: Yeah. As you said, it's in the early stages right now, but it seems like a construction site next door may have played a role in this. The three-story building collapsed into a hole where construction workers had been excavating for a new building on a nearby lot earlier in the day. That's according to the city's buildings commissioner, Ahmed Tigani, who was speaking at a press conference last night about that work.
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AHMED TIGANI: The type of work they were conducting was excavation work on that job site. And so that was what they were working on.
KASTENBAUM: And it's not yet clear whether there was any negligence here. You know, we see a lot of construction sites like this where they shore up the building next door, and it'll be a while before we find out exactly what happened. But there's a lot of new housing construction going on all over this city right now. And this was a relatively small construction site in the grand scheme of things, but the Buildings Department is tasked with inspecting all building construction sites. They have a limited number of inspectors, which can make it challenging to stay on top of all of these locations. So they'll be looking at the work that was taking place at that excavation site. Did they properly shore up the building next door, or was that building itself - you know, it's a really old building, nearly a century old - was there anything wrong with that building that went unnoticed and caused it to collapse?
MARTÍNEZ: Really quick. One more thing, Steve. Wondering if people there are worried about maybe another building in the area collapsing or something like that happening.
KASTENBAUM: Yeah. There certainly is that possibility with the building on the other side of that lot where we can see into it. There's concern whether that building could come down as well.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's reporter Steve Kastenbaum in New York City. Steve, thank you very much.
KASTENBAUM: My pleasure.
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