The four-unit apartment building dating from 1930 collapsed and tumbled into the adjoining construction site where excavation work was under way and the cause was under investigation, said John Esposito, the city's fire department chief.
The number of people who were at home when the building in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn collapsed at about 4pm on Wednesday as not immediately known, officials said. They did not say how many workers were on the construction site at the time of the collapse.
A firefighting crew that happened to be in the neighbourhood was on the scene within a minute of the collapse and helped pull the first victims from the debris, authorities told reporters at an evening press conference.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least two people were killed, and more than 10 others taken to local hospitals with a combination of critical and non-life-threatening injuries.
City Fire Department Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said the overall number of known victims stood at 19 people, 7 of them children. She declined to say whether the two dead were children or adults. A firefighter also suffered minor injuries, she said.
Local television news footage showed rescue workers with search dogs combing through the building's ruins, removing debris in buckets, seeking any signs of people who may have been trapped in voids beneath the debris.
New York television station WABC-TV reported at least four survivors were pulled from the wreckage about two hours after the collapse, including a pregnant woman.
Esposito said it would take rescue teams several days for the entire site to be "searched for all potential victims," adding, "We do not know how many people are missing overall."
The Fire Department initially said four people were critically injured and six more sustained minor injuries before the first two survivors to be rescued were pulled from the debris.
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