Trini among victims in deadly Brooklyn building collapse

A Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al is among the vic­tims of a cat­a­stroph­ic build­ing col­lapse in Flat­bush, Brook­lyn – a heav­i­ly Caribbean en­clave in New York City – that left at least eight peo­ple dead and 18 oth­ers in­jured.

New York City May­or Zohran Mam­dani con­firmed on Thurs­day that a na­tion­al from Trinidad and To­ba­go, along­side im­mi­grants from Mex­i­co, Colom­bia, and Ecuador, was among those killed and in­jured when the 1930s-era res­i­den­tial build­ing gave way on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

Six adults, in­clud­ing two con­struc­tion work­ers, and two chil­dren lost their lives in the tragedy. Four fire­fight­ers were among the 18 in­jured, and at least one sur­vivor re­mains hos­pi­talised in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

“I want to take a mo­ment to re­mem­ber those we have so sense­less­ly lost,” May­or Mam­dani said af­ter vis­it­ing sur­vivors at a lo­cal hos­pi­tal on Thurs­day af­ter­noon.

“These were our friends and our neigh­bours, par­ents and chil­dren, young fam­i­lies build­ing their lives in our city, im­mi­grants from Mex­i­co, Colom­bia, Trinidad and be­yond.”

The dis­as­ter un­fold­ed around 4 pm on Wednes­day when res­i­dents heard a loud boom.

One of the build­ing’s ex­te­ri­or walls tore away – ex­pos­ing the in­te­ri­ors of sev­er­al apart­ments – and the struc­ture col­lapsed di­rect­ly in­to an ac­tive con­struc­tion site next door.

Ac­cord­ing to fire de­part­ment of­fi­cials, New York City Fire De­part­ment (FD­NY) crews ar­rived on the scene with­in one minute of the emer­gency call. Sur­viv­ing con­struc­tion work­ers im­me­di­ate­ly joined fire­fight­ers in dig­ging through the rub­ble to pull trapped res­i­dents to safe­ty.

The col­lapse sent shock­waves through Flat­bush, a qui­et neigh­bour­hood known as a melt­ing pot for Afro-Caribbean, His­pan­ic, and Asian com­mu­ni­ties.

Neigh­bour Ann Marie did not ini­tial­ly hear the col­lapse over the sound of her ra­dio, on­ly re­al­is­ing the scale of the dis­as­ter when flash­ing fire truck lights il­lu­mi­nat­ed her street and she stepped out­side to see the ex­posed apart­ments.

Through­out the night and in­to Thurs­day morn­ing, dozens of anx­ious res­i­dents gath­ered be­hind cor­dons as dust and de­bris hung in the air. Res­cue teams de­ployed drones, snif­fer dogs, and heavy cranes to comb through the rub­ble.

Res­i­dent Joyette Kerr stood vig­il at the scene from mid­night, pray­ing with fam­i­lies await­ing word on miss­ing loved ones.

At 1.30 am on Thurs­day, she watched res­cuers pull a live sur­vivor from the pile, be­fore walk­ing to a church across the street to con­sole the dis­traught wid­ow of a young con­struc­tion work­er whose body had just been re­cov­ered.

“His wife was very hys­ter­i­cal,” said Kerr, who has lived in the area since she was a teenag­er. “She couldn’t take the pain.”

Kerr not­ed that an­oth­er man spent the night fran­ti­cal­ly vis­it­ing near­by hos­pi­tals search­ing for his two miss­ing nephews with­out suc­cess.

Law en­force­ment sources have iden­ti­fied sev­en of the eight peo­ple killed in the Brook­lyn build­ing col­lapse, but have not iden­ti­fied their na­tion­al­i­ties. They are:

Ma­madou Bar­ry, 23

José Luis Cagua­na Cosquil­lo, 26

John Doe, an uniden­ti­fied man in his ear­ly 30s

Kevin San­ti­a­go Reyes Gon­za­lez, 10

Juan Daniel Sal­va­da Guz­man, 31

Nicole Daniela Sal­vala Ro­driguez, 9

Edgar Sapon, 26

Gabriel Siguen­cia, 22