Flatbush Collapse Death Toll Rises to 8: Videos, Records, Reactions

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The death toll from Wednesday’s building collapse in Flatbush, Brooklyn, has climbed to eight, including two children, and 18 people were hurt, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Thursday. That is up from two dead in our first report Wednesday night. The FDNY wrapped up its search at 3:37 p.m. Thursday and says no one else is in the rubble. Now the questions move from the pile to the paperwork: who was digging next door, what the city already knew, and why a building with 98 open housing violations was still full of families.

The featured image is an FDNY photo of the site on Thursday morning, Nov. 12. This is a follow-up that pulls together the new official figures, reporting from New York outlets, and the videos New Yorkers have been sharing since Wednesday afternoon.

The Lowdown

Wednesday night the official count was two. By Thursday morning it was eight, and the shift says a lot about how bad the pile was: six people were found at the scene and two more died in the hospital, the mayor said. Online, the story split into two conversations at once. One is the footage, from a doorbell camera catching the wall give way to a TV anchor zooming in on closets still full of hanging coats. The other is anger. Neighbors and activists are calling it negligence, greed and gentrification. City records give that anger something to hold onto, but no official has said what caused the collapse yet. Here is what is confirmed, what people on the ground are saying, and where the two do and don’t line up. You can judge the rest.

Key Takeaways

Eight people died: six adults and two children, ages 9 and 10. Two of the adults were construction workers at the lot next door. Eighteen were hurt, including four firefighters; one person was still critical Thursday, the mayor said.
The FDNY ended rescue operations at 3:37 p.m. Thursday, said no victims remain, and turned the site over to the Department of Buildings and the NYPD.
The Buildings Department found five companies tied to the construction project at 2625 Bedford Ave. and began sweeping about 100 other sites linked to them, the mayor said.
City housing records list 98 open violations at the collapsed building, 1321 Flatbush Ave., CBS New York reported. The construction site next door was cited in April for demolishing under a stop-work order; the city says that was corrected in May.
The cause is still under investigation, with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office checking for criminal conduct. Three neighboring buildings, 1323, 1325 and 1327 Flatbush Ave., are under full vacate orders.

Watch the doorbell-camera video from @juliaburns_tv on Instagram

Doorbell-camera footage posted by News 12 reporter Julia Burns (@juliaburns_tv) on Instagram, Nov. 12, 2026. Burns credits the video to James Williams. View the original reel.

The Full Story

From Two to Eight Overnight

Rescuers worked through the night under floodlights, with dogs and drones, and then through a hard rain Thursday. At 7:24 a.m. Mamdani posted that eight New Yorkers had died. By the 12:30 p.m. briefing, the breakdown was six adults and two children dead, six of them at the scene and two at hospitals, and 18 injured: 14 civilians and four firefighters, amNewYork reported. “The vast majority of those still being treated in hospitals are in stable condition,” the mayor said, per NBC New York. “One person is in critical condition.”

Police released the names of the dead Thursday evening, NBC New York reported: Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9; Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10; Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31; Ndiaye Mamadou, 31; Barry Mamadou, 23; Gabriel Siguencia, 22; Edgar Sapon, 26; and Jose Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26. The mayor said the victims came from several countries, including Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and Trinidad. Ecuador’s consulate said two of its citizens, Caguana Cosquillo and Siguencia, were among the dead, according to Gothamist.

Gothamist talked to Luis Siguencia, who spent the night going from hospital to hospital looking for his 22-year-old son. Gabriel had been working on the foundation at the site for two weeks. “He wanted to get ahead,” his father said. “Because we all come here with the dream of getting ahead.”

At 3:37 p.m. Thursday the FDNY said it had searched the whole site and found no more victims. The scene now belongs to the Department of Buildings and the NYPD.

The Videos Everyone Is Sharing

The clip at the top of this story is the closest thing yet to the moment itself. A Ring doorbell camera, pointed down a stairwell, shows the inside of the doorway filling with dust and debris as something gives way outside. The camera’s clock reads about 3:58 p.m. on Nov. 11, minutes before the 4:01 p.m. 911 call the FDNY cited. Burns posted it as exclusive News 12 video; it has not been independently checked by PCP beyond the time stamp on screen.

Watch the @orlando_nightmare reel on Instagram

TRUE CRIME (@orlando_nightmare) on Instagram, Nov. 12, 2026. The reel credits the footage to Anderson Velez. View the original reel.

The view from inside is worse. True-crime page @orlando_nightmare reposted a home security video from a third-floor apartment at 1321 Flatbush: a boy walks through the living room while a toddler plays on the floor, then the far wall gives way and daylight pours in before the feed cuts out. The footage comes from Anderson Velez, who shared it with Gothamist and CBS New York. He told Gothamist his wife and both sons survived but were hurt, and that the family had moved into the apartment earlier this month after living in a shelter. “I am still in shock,” he said.

TikTok user @meekalicious0, posted Nov. 11, 2026, at 4:10 p.m. ET. View the original video.

Nine minutes after the call, TikTok user @meekalicious0 was already filming from the corner. The 22-second clip pans from the shorn-off building to fire trucks lining Flatbush Avenue and a crowd forming behind them. It has been viewed more than half a million times.

Watch Pat Kiernan’s reel on Instagram

Pat Kiernan (@patkiernan) on Instagram, Nov. 11, 2026. View the original reel.

NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan zoomed in on the image that keeps stopping people mid-scroll. On the top floor of the building next door, the wall is simply gone, but the coats in two closets are still hanging on the rod. “The stuff that was shoved in the back of the closet is still shoved in the back of the closet,” he says. “But the wall has vanished.” He points to a firefighter standing on a landing at the top of a staircase that now opens onto air.

ABC World News Tonight’s Instagram carousel from Thursday afternoon shows the same scene from above. Its second image, an AP photo by Yuki Iwamura, looks straight down on the whole site: the debris field where 1321 Flatbush stood, excavators working the pile, the dug-out construction lot beside it, and the neighboring building with its side peeled open. Another frame shows a bedroom on an upper floor, bed and vanity still in place, open to the street. ABC’s caption says the images show “the personal effects left behind by victims.” ABC has turned off embedding for this post, so this is a link, not an embed: see ABC World News Tonight’s photos on Instagram (the aerial view is image 2).

ABC News’ main account also posted a Thursday reel with the same official picture: the Department of Buildings is investigating the cause, at least eight people are dead, including two children, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani addressed the collapse on Thursday. The network’s World News Tonight carousel, linked above, is a separate post; this reel can be embedded.

Watch @abcnews’s reel on Instagram

ABC News on Instagram, Nov. 12, 2026. View the original post.

What People on the Ground Are Saying

Watch the Left Voice reel on Instagram

Left Voice (@left_voice) on Instagram, Nov. 11, 2026. View the original reel.

Left Voice, a socialist news site, put a camera in front of neighbors Wednesday night outside a corner deli. A man who says he has lived there since he was a kid, and has worked in construction, does not wait for an investigation: “What that is happening is poor construction,” he says. “Whoever that owns it, y’all in trouble. The construction company that y’all have hired here, they in trouble too.” He says the buildings on the block are in bad shape, with broken pipes and heat that doesn’t work, and that one-bedrooms nearby rent for $3,000. Left Voice’s caption calls the collapse “the result of a racist, exploitative system.” Those are his and the page’s views. The city has not named a cause.

Watch the AJ+ reel on Instagram

AJ+ (@ajplus) on Instagram, Nov. 12, 2026. View the original reel.

AJ+ took the same argument national on Thursday, arguing that gentrification is pushing Black and Latino New Yorkers into unsafe housing. Its reel includes the same neighbor from the Left Voice video and adds residents of its own. “You cannot build the kind of high-rises that you want on weak foundation,” one woman says. A man calls it “negligence, racism, land grabs and money grabs to develop new buildings.” The reel says the lot next door was reportedly slated for a mixed-use development including condos. What the city has confirmed: the lot had approved plans for a three-story building, and a separate plan for nine stories had not been approved, Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said Wednesday.

Watch the @lizlaughlovenyc reel on Instagram

Liz (@lizlaughlovenyc) on Instagram, Nov. 11, 2026. View the original reel.

And then there is the warning video. Creator @lizlaughlovenyc tells people watching from the sidewalk to leave, comparing the dust to 9/11 and saying old buildings mean asbestos. She predicts a mesothelioma “outbreak in about 10 to 15 years.” That is her prediction, not a finding. As of Thursday night, city officials had not announced any asbestos or air-quality results for the site. Her basic advice to stay out of the dust is the same thing the city has been saying, though: the area is closed off and the FDNY has warned of secondary collapse.

What the Records Show

The building that fell, 1321 Flatbush Ave., was built in 1930 and had a medical-uniforms store on the ground floor with apartments above, according to Curbed. City housing records list 98 open violations there, from leaks to bedbugs, CBS New York reported. The owner of record is Isolag Realty Corp.; CBS says Olufemi Falade is listed as its registered agent. In 2006, a judge held Falade in civil contempt over violations at other buildings he owned and sentenced him to 12 days in jail, CBS and Curbed reported. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said his office is looking into “disturbing things” about the property and its owner.

Next door, at 2625 Bedford Ave., workers were excavating for a new building on Wednesday. In March the Buildings Department ordered a contractor to stop demolition there over missing protection for the neighboring properties. Inspectors found in April that a one-story building had been knocked down anyway, and the contractor was cited, PIX11 reported. The city says those violations were corrected and the stop-work order lifted in May. Investigators have not said whether that work caused the collapse, and a full stop-work order is now in place, CBS New York reported.

Watch the World Simply Explained reel on Instagram

World Simply Explained (@worldsimplyexplained) on Instagram, Nov. 12, 2026. The account labels it an illustrative 3D reconstruction, not actual footage. View the original reel.

So how does a hole next door take down a building? Explainer page World Simply Explained made a 3D animation of the theory everyone on the block already has: dig a deep pit beside an old foundation without enough shoring, the soil shifts toward the hole, one side of the building settles faster than the other, and the walls crack and fail. The reel also says records show the excavation permits allowed digging up to 14 feet deep. That is the page’s explainer, not an official finding, and PCP has not independently confirmed the 14-foot figure. The animation itself says the cause is still under investigation, and so does the city.

“If there is anyone or any entity operating in this city that bears responsibility for what happened, we will hold them fully accountable,” Mamdani said, per Gothamist. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office is checking for criminal conduct.

Displaced Neighbors and Where to Get Help

The Buildings Department has full vacate orders on 1323, 1325 and 1327 Flatbush Ave., the city’s 311 page says, and engineers have to clear them before anyone moves back. The Red Cross had registered seven households, 14 adults and five children, for emergency help, including temporary lodging, by 6 a.m. Thursday, Brooklyn Paper reported. A reception center is open at the Flatbush YMCA, 1401 Flatbush Ave. Anyone looking for a loved one can call 311, or 212-639-9675 from outside the city. Displaced residents who haven’t registered can call 1-877-RED-CROSS. Streets around Flatbush, Bedford and Foster avenues are still closed.

Read our original coverage: Brooklyn Building Collapse in Flatbush Leaves 2 Dead and 17 Injured, Including 7 Children. More news and culture is on our Zeitgeist page.