Rescue Effort Continues After Fatal Crane Collapse

Rescue workers search for survivors at the 305 East 50th Street by Toykin Chin/AP; lower photograph by chucknyc88 on Flickr

After a 19-story construction crane collapsed in Turtle Bay and fell towards other buildings, firefighters and other rescue workers are searching for survivors in the rubble. At least four people - all construction workers, Brad Cohen, Aaron Stephens, Anthony Mazza and Wayne Binder - are dead and many more are injured. It's believed two or three more people are missing, possibly buried under the debris. Mayor Bloomberg called "one of the worst construction accidents" in the history of the city.

Around 2:22 p.m. yesterday, construction workers at 303 East 51st Street, where a 40+ floor building is planned, were trying to lift the crane to another floor. The crane broke apart, its lower part (the boom), falling and hitting 300 East 51th Street across the street, while its upper part, the jib and operator's cabin, continue to fall south, completely destroying 305 East 50th Street and hitting other buildings on East 50th and the rear of a Second Avenue building. Here's the Department of Buildings' explanation so far:

A preliminary investigation indicates the accident occurred while workers were adding tower sections to extend the crane upwards, an operation known as “jumping” the crane. While crews were jumping the crane to the 18th floor, a heavy-duty steel collar, which wrapped around the mast of the crane and used to tie the crane to the side of the building, fell as workers attempted to install it. When the steel collar fell, it damaged a lower steel collar, installed at the 9th floor. The collar installed at the 9th floor served as a major anchor securing the tower crane to the building under construction. With the elimination of the support provided by the steel collar at the 9th floor, the counter-weights at the top of the crane’s tower caused the entire structure to fall southward.

According to the contracting company owner Stephen Kaplan, a piece of steel fell, cutting one of the ties securing the crane to the building, "It was an absolute freak accident. All the piece of steel had to do was fall slightly left or right, and nothing would have happened."

The number of injured is so far reported to be 24 people, and it's shocking not more were, given yesterday's fine weather and people eager to celebrate St. Patrick's Day early in the mostly residential neighborhood with many bars. Residents described hearing a loud noise (some called it a boom, another said it was "one minute of metal scraping against itself and it gave people a chance to run"), feeling their buildings shake, and, later, seeing a plume of dust from the collapse.

A woman who lives in 301 East 50th, the building next to the crushed four-story townhouse, told the Daily News, "I was in the shower, 10 feet from where the crane came down. When it came down, I was thrown into the wall." Edith Rompilla, who lives at 311 East 50th Street, told the Times she saw the whole thing as she listened to opera, "I looked out the window and I saw the crane coming...I saw bricks flying toward me, and I thought they were going to come right through my window.”

Kerry Walker, who lives on the top floor of now-completely leveled 305 East 50th Street, said to the News, "The whole thing is pancaked, everything, all the way down to the basement." His wife missed the crane because she had gone out to buy aspirin. And one victim, John Gallego, caught under the rubble, called his girlfriend on his cellphone, "I'm hurt! I'm trapped! Call 911!" and was rescued.