Crane collapses on to New York apartments

A crane collapsed smashing into a 23-storey apartment building before crashing onto the street in Manhattan today.

At least one person died in what was the city’s second deadly crane accident in less than three months.

The body was pulled from the rubble strewn across East 91st Street and First Avenue along with other people. Their condition was not known.

Firefighters and rescue workers continued to search through the tangled crane.

The upper-floor balconies of the apartment building were severely damaged and a hole extended several stories down the side of the building.

A fire service spokesman said it appeared the entire cab came off the crane; its main arm hit the penthouse of his building, then “took out the north-east corner”.

Chaos enveloped the largely residential district of town houses and apartment high-rises as dozens of emergency vehicles raced to the scene during the morning rush hour.

In the last accident, on March 15 about two miles away, contractors building a 46-storey condominium near the United Nations were trying to lengthen the crane when a steel support broke, killing seven people.

A four-storey town house was demolished and several other buildings were damaged.

A city inspector resigned after his arrest on charges of falsifying business records.

In April the city’s buildings commissioner resigned, under fire over a rising number of deadly construction accidents that have left more than 26 construction workers dead in the past year.

Since then, the city has added extra inspections at building sites and required that its staff be on hand whenever the cranes were raised higher.