Part of a residential building collapsed Wednesday morning in New York, leaving a corner of the ruined social housing building.
City firefighters said they had not received any injuries. They indicated that they had answered an appeal reporting an explosion of gas which caused the collapse of an incineration duct in this 20 -storey building located in the Bronx. The authorities said that no accommodation had been affected.
“An investigation is underway to determine the cause of this event and the extent of the damage beyond the external damage reported on the fireplace,” said the city’s housing authority in a press release.
A video taken on the scene shows a building whose corner collapsed from the ground floor to the roof. Videos taken by neighboring residents show a cloud of dust rising above the neighborhood a few moments after the collapse, which occurred around 8:10 am.
Photo Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, Associated Press
A corner of the building collapsed from the ground floor to the roof.
The rubble was strewn with air conditioners, who seem to have been torn from the windows of the apartments by the fall of the bricks.
Mayor Eric Adams said he was informed of the emergency situation and that the authorities were still assessing the situation as a whole. “For your safety, please avoid the area,” he wrote on X.
Municipal police said they received calls at 911 reporting the collapse of a building shortly after 8 am Wednesday morning in the Mitchel Houses district.
Photo Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, Associated Press
Firefighters work near the collapse site
“Upon their arrival, the agents noted the partial collapse of a building,” said the New York police department in a statement. The firefighters, municipal building managers and the electricity supplier Con Edison went there, while the agents established a security perimeter around the area.
New York buildings were used to eliminate waste, which was then burned on site. But they have been widely replaced by waste compactors, which can use the same conduits.
About half a million New Yorker live in aging buildings managed by the greatest housing authority in the country, known as Nycha.
The tenants of this system have complained for decades for the presence of rodents, molds and heating and hot water cuts.
Many of these properties date from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. In 2019, a federal controller was appointed to deal with chronic problems such as lead paint, mold and lack of heating. At the end of his five -year term in 2024, the controller, Bart Schwartz, noted that the main problem for residents remained “the poor physical condition of the Nycha buildings”.
