At least two dead while others are trapped in the rubble after a building collapse in New York City

At least two people have died, while others have been trapped in the rubble after a three-storey building collapsed in Brooklyn, New York, at the edge of a construction site on Wednesday afternoon.Some 250 firefighters and police officers tackled the rubble with pickaxes and saws to pull people covered in dust from beneath piles of twisted wood and brick.During a press conference, officials said that at least 17 people had been hospitalised, four in critical condition. While it is unclear whether people might still be trapped, New York City Fire Department officials stated that search and rescue operations would continue into the night.“This has been an incredibly challenging and fast-moving situation, with precarious wreckage to navigate and dangerous voids beneath the surface,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said. “This type of rescue is exactly what the FDNY trains for.”According to New York City’s Buildings Commissioner, Ahmed Tigani, the building fell when construction workers were digging an empty lot next door for a new building. However, the cause of the collapse is under investigation.The collapsed building, which housed apartments above ground-level businesses, was reduced to a massive mound of debris at the bottom of the construction pit. The neighbouring structure, which shared a wall with the building, was left standing but suffered extensive damage.