A routine afternoon in Brooklyn turned deadly when a three-story building suddenly crumbled, killing eight people. Behind the casualty numbers was a young family’s devastating loss.
Just as one couple prepared to welcome their second child, 26-year-old José Luis Caguana was killed in the collapse. His heavily pregnant wife is now left without the man his family says was their sole provider.
Meanwhile, dramatic footage captured the terrifying moments surrounding the collapse and the rescue operation that followed. As crews searched the rubble, troubling details about the building and neighboring construction site began to emerge.
Terrifying Video Captures the Collapse
The building at 1321 Flatbush Avenue came down shortly after 4 p.m. on November 11, crashing into an excavation site next door at 2625 Bedford Avenue. One video shared online captured what happened inside a home as the collapse began.
A woman and two children can be seen inside. An older boy appears to be getting something from the refrigerator while a toddler sits nearby playing with toys. The room suddenly begins to shake.
The older child starts running toward another room as the woman appears at its entrance. She retreats inside, and the boy follows her. The toddler then tries to scramble away as sections of the surroundings begin falling.
The footage ends as the collapse is unfolding. CBS News later reported that Anderson Velez had shared footage from inside an apartment and said he was away when the collapse happened, but his wife and two sons were home.
A neighboring building stands exposed after part of its exterior wall was torn away during the deadly Brooklyn collapse. | Source: Getty Images
His family was rescued. Velez said his wife and 9-year-old son were hospitalized, while his 2-year-old son was not injured, according to CBS News New York.
A separate Ring camera video showed debris flying as the building came down, followed by a thick cloud of dust engulfing a neighboring hallway. The footage offered a glimpse of how suddenly the disaster unfolded. The FDNY received a 911 call at 4:01 p.m.
More than 250 emergency personnel eventually responded as firefighters, other first responders, and construction workers searched for people trapped beneath the rubble. Canine teams, drones, helicopters, fire trucks, and excavation equipment were also used during the operation.
Part of the neighboring building at 1323 Flatbush Avenue was torn away in the collapse, exposing sections of apartments, including a staircase, bedroom areas, and closets. Yet amid the destruction, rescuers also found survivors.
Pregnant Woman Pulled Alive From the Rubble
One of the most dramatic rescues involved a woman who was six months pregnant. Her husband had been searching for her after the collapse and tried to get closer to the scene before law enforcement officers directed him to a safe area, according to ABC7 New York.
“I’ve heard nothing. She’s inside the building. She’s pregnant,” he said while emergency crews searched. At about 6:30 p.m., roughly two and a half hours after the building fell, rescuers found the woman alive. She was placed on a stretcher and taken by ambulance for treatment.
“I have an update. She is alive; she is still alive. I am very happy,” her husband said afterward. The identities of the couple were not immediately released. Other families waiting near the scene would receive very different news.
Firefighters search through piles of debris at the collapse site near Flatbush and Bedford Avenues in Brooklyn. | Source: Getty Images
José Luis Caguana Was Supporting His Growing Family
Among those killed was José Luis Caguana Cosquillo, a 26-year-old construction worker from Ecuador. Caguana had immigrated to the United States about six years earlier and lived in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood.
His friend Segundo Iza identified him as a construction worker at the site, CBS News reported. Caguana was also a father. Accounts provided to different outlets described his older child as either a 4-year-old son or a 5-year-old daughter.
What the reports consistently established was that Caguana had one young child and his wife was pregnant with their second baby. His brother, Carlos Caguana, said José had supported the household financially.
“Her husband has passed away; he was the sole provider for the family,” Carlos said, according to the New York Post. His pregnant wife is therefore now left without the person his family said had provided its income. Carlos also addressed what the loss meant for Caguana’s child.
“Imagine losing your father, it’s very difficult. And knowing that his dad was who brought financial support to them, the mainstay of their home, the one who brought, as they say, the daily bread,” he said, according to TODAY.com.
Caguana was more than a construction worker and provider. He played soccer with New York-based Club La Bahia NY, which publicly mourned him as a neighbor and friend.
“I will always remember you as a unique player with that magic in your feet—memories I will never forget,” the club’s president said. A former teacher of Caguana’s child also described the family as immigrants from Ecuador and spoke about knowing him as a parent.
“They are a truly humble, kind, and warm family,” Ewelina Alvarado-Baczewska told Realtor.com. Teachers at the preschool launched a GoFundMe campaign for Caguana’s family.
The Ecuadorian consulate, meanwhile, was helping make arrangements to return his body to Ecuador for burial, according to ABC7. Caguana was the first of the victims identified publicly. As Thursday progressed, the names revealed how many families had been affected.
FDNY and NYPD personnel gather inside the excavation area as the search operation continues following the building collapse. | Source: Getty Images
Two Young Cousins Were Among the Eight Killed
The eight victims ranged in age from nine to 31.
They were Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, nine; Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, ten; Gabriel Siguencia, 22; Barry Mamadou, 23; José Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26; Edgar Sapon, 26; Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31; and Ndiaye Mamadou, 31, according to CBS News New York.
Nicole and Kevin were cousins, ABC7 reported. The Colombian Consulate said two children and one adult killed in the collapse were Colombian citizens. The victims also reflected Flatbush’s immigrant population.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said those killed and injured came from several countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, Guinea, and Guatemala. Five of the victims — Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Guzman, Barry Mamadou, and Ndiaye Mamadou — lived in the collapsed building, according to CBS News.
Siguencia lived in the Bronx, Sapon lived in Hell’s Kitchen, and Caguana lived in Bushwick. Two construction workers were among those killed, officials said. Siguencia’s family spent Wednesday night trying to locate him after initially being told he was critically injured.
Emergency crews work through the wreckage at the corner of Flatbush and Bedford Avenues after the three-story building came down. | Source: Getty Images
“They told us he was in critical condition, and then told us that we lost him, but they didn’t tell us where he was, where they could have taken him,” his stepsister, Kayla Chimborazo, told ABC7 New York.
The family searched hospitals and showed his photograph to staff before learning Thursday that he had died. Relatives said the 22-year-old father had remained at the construction site late Wednesday to work overtime and provide for family members in Ecuador.
Six victims were pronounced dead at the scene. Two others later died at the hospital. Officials said 18 other people were injured, including four firefighters, and one person remained in critical condition as of Thursday afternoon.
Another construction worker, Alvaro Miguel Caizaguano Toasa, was pulled from the wreckage alive. His family saw footage of firefighters rescuing him after he had been trapped beneath the collapse. Caizaguano Toasa was hospitalized with a head injury, and his relatives said he had a wife and two children.
Firefighters carefully comb through broken walls, wood, and other debris during the extensive search at the Brooklyn collapse site. | Source: Getty Images
Workers Who Escaped Went Back Into the Rubble
Some construction workers who survived the collapse immediately returned to help people who had been trapped, Mamdani said. “Construction workers who had only barely survived themselves turned back and dug victims out of the rubble. People are alive today because of their heroism yesterday,” the mayor said.
Firefighters continued searching overnight and into Thursday. Rain later poured over the site while crews sifted through debris. Former Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh had warned that rain could flood spaces where rescuers were searching and potentially destabilize the ground beneath them.
FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said crews would not stop until they were certain nobody remained trapped. “We promise,” Bonsignore said, according to The New York Times, “with everything we have, we will not stop working until everyone is rescued or recovered.”
The FDNY concluded its rescue operation Thursday afternoon, almost 24 hours after the collapse. Attention then increasingly turned to a question investigators had yet to answer: Why did the building fall?
Emergency personnel and vehicles crowd the area as first responders mobilize following the deadly collapse in Brooklyn. | Source: Getty Images
Construction Next Door Had Already Drawn Scrutiny
The collapsed structure was a three-story mixed-use building constructed in 1930. It contained four apartments on its upper floors and commercial space at street level. Workers were excavating the neighboring Bedford Avenue lot when the collapse happened.
The site had an active permit for excavation and foundation work for a proposed three-story building, according to the city’s Department of Buildings. Developers had also sought approval for a nine-story project with a ground-floor grocery store, but that amended application had not been approved.
Records cited by The New York Times showed that a pre-construction inspection in March had described the north facade of 1321 Flatbush Avenue as being in “poor condition with noticeable cracks.”
There was another issue. The third-party special inspector who was supposed to oversee foundation work at the construction site had a license that expired in July, according to city records cited by the Times. It was unclear whether that inspector remained involved with the contractors or had recently been at the site.
A large emergency response fills the surrounding streets as firefighters, police, and other personnel converge near the scene. | Source: Getty Images
The neighboring project had also faced previous enforcement action. In March, the Department of Buildings halted demolition at the Bedford Avenue property after inspectors found that required safety protections had not been installed.
Inspectors returned the following month and found that demolition had continued despite the stop-work order, according to records reported by Realtor.com. The contractor was issued a $10,000 fine.
Additional citations and another stop-work order followed in May over alleged failures to protect neighboring buildings and deviations from approved plans. That order was lifted within a week.
Another account based on city records reported that excavation work involving explosive rock blasting had been scheduled to begin in September, although it was not immediately clear what work was underway immediately before Wednesday’s collapse.
The city issued a new full stop-work order following the disaster.
Mamdani also announced that officials would inspect 100 other properties associated with five entities tied to the Bedford Avenue project. But the neighboring construction site was not the only property with a lengthy paper trail.
Firefighters continue searching amid the rubble as heavy equipment and emergency crews work at the Flatbush Avenue site. | Source: Getty Images
Collapsed Building Had 98 Housing Violations
The 96-year-old building itself had 98 recorded housing violations dating back to 1972, according to city Department of Housing Preservation and Development records cited by Realtor.com. Eleven were recorded during 2026.
They included unsafe electrical wiring and a notice concerning an adequate water supply for the building’s sprinkler or standpipe system.
Other reported violations over the years involved issues such as defective doors, leaking ceilings, fire-retardant materials, lead paint, mice, and smoke or carbon monoxide detectors. However, separate Department of Buildings records painted a more complicated picture of the structure’s history.
The New York Post reported that the property had no structural complaints filed with the Buildings Department before demolition began next door in September 2025.
The deadly Brooklyn collapse left the neighboring structure ripped open, exposing bedrooms, stairways, closets, and personal belongings to the outside. | Source: Getty Images
Its earlier DOB complaints and administrative violations concerned outdoor advertising rather than its foundation, walls, or floors. The building’s owner was Isolag Realty Corp., a company tied to Olufemi Falade.
Falade had previously served 12 days in jail in 2006 after failing to correct hundreds of violations at other properties he owned, according to records cited by the Hanford Sentinel. Those properties were not 1321 Flatbush Avenue.
The Department of Buildings and law enforcement authorities launched an investigation into the collapse, examining both the fallen building and construction activity next door.
Officials had not determined the cause in the supplied reports. Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said investigators would examine every part of what happened.
“We have immediately launched a full investigation into how exactly this happened with our law enforcement partners, and we will be looking into all aspects of the building and the neighboring construction site,” he said.
