The painstaking search through the rubble of a collapsed Brooklyn apartment building is “very reminiscent” of the devastation at the World Trade Center, an FDNY chief said Thursday, while warning that debris from neighboring buildings could still come down.
At least eight people were killed and 17 injured after a three-story building collapsed into an open excavation in Flatbush on Wednesday. Officials cautioned that crews could need at least three days to complete the search.
“It becomes a very complex, time-consuming search where [we’re] crawling in and around the collapse, looking for void spaces, searching those void spaces,” John Esposito, the FDNY’s chief of department, told FOX 5 early Thursday.
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“To me, it’s very reminiscent of the searches we were doing at the Trade Center,” he added.
Esposito said the operation could continue for at least three days, noting that nearby buildings also remain at risk.
Although “pieces” of an adjoining building are expected to fall and could further endanger crews, the FDNY said it is “confident” that no other structures will collapse.