U.S. & World

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Firefighters are still picking through the rubble of a massive crane accident for survivors, or victims, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Two construction workers and a woman who lived in a building damaged by the downed crane are among the missing, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Four people are confirmed dead in the accident and 17 injured.

Crews removed a piece of the white crane Saturday that smashed a four-story brownstone and damaged at least five other buildings in the affluent East Side neighborhood. The mayor said rescuers will be able to intensify a search for survivors once the large pieces of debris are removed.

The 19-story crane damaged three buildings and completely destroyed a fourth. Several blocks in midtown Manhattan remained closed through the night Saturday and some residents were forced to stay at a nearby high school serving as a Red Cross shelter.

On Sunday, construction crews positioned a second crane to help remove pieces of the white crane that crushed the townhouse, and started removing piles of bricks and debris from the middle of the street.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said crews used search dogs, thermal-imaging cameras and listening devices in rescue efforts throughout the night Saturday. He called the work "painstaking," and said rubble was being removed carefully, sometimes by hand, to prevent further collapse.

One man was trapped inside the collapsed brownstone for 3 1/2 hours before firefighters rescued him.

"It's a tragic event and we hope we will not find anyone else, but for now, we cannot be sure," Bloomberg said.

"There is a lot that we do not know about why and what exactly happened, but you should know that we are using every bit of our efforts to conduct a rescue operation," he continued. "And one of primary goals is to make sure that in doing that, we don't cause any further damage to adjacent buildings where people might be, or in that building that has the crane right on top of it."

The building that suffered the most damage was a five-story brownstone with a bar in the first floor, which was closed at the time of the accident.

The 2:20 p.m. accident made an affluent Manhattan neighborhood look like a disaster area: Cars were overturned and crushed. A huge dust cloud rose over the neighborhood. Rubble was scattered along the streets and piled several stories high where the building went down.

Ben Galati, a 54-year-old doorman at a high-rise apartment tower across the street from the construction site, said he was in the basement when it happened, and ran for his life when he heard the structure smash into his building.

"I heard a rumble outside. I said, 'Let's get out of here!' And then the crane came down. A split second later, I heard an explosion," he said.

Nearby residents and spectators appeared overwhelmed with emotion. Jeanie Squeri told WCBS-TV she lived in a destroyed building her whole life.

"I just left the house one minute and the whole thing came down," Squeri said. "If I hadn't left I would have been in that building. I would have been in the building with my two cats."

"I saw a man being taken out of the building with his shoes on," said talk show host Dick Cavett. "I thought it looked like something out of 'Crime and Punishment.' That man had his shoes on - he laced them expecting to take them off - and now someone else will."

John PlaGreco, who owns Fu Bar located in the building that was crushed, said he feared one of his employees was dead in the rubble.

"Our bar is done," he said. "The crane crashed the whole building. If I wasn't watching a Yankees game, I would've come to work early and gotten killed."

Residents who lived near the site, on 51st Street near 2nd Avenue, said they had complained repeatedly in recent months that the crane appeared precarious.

About 19 of the high-rise condominium building's 43 planned stories had been erected, and the crane was scheduled to be moved Saturday so workers could start work on a fresh story when a piece of steel fell and sheared off one of the ties holding it to the building, according to Stephen Kaplan, an owner of the Reliance Construction Group, which manages construction at the site. The crane had been given a clean bill of health on Friday and a permit was issued to workers for Saturday.

"It was an absolute freak accident," Kaplan said. "All the piece of steel had to do was fall slightly left or right, and nothing would have happened."

The crane split into pieces as it fell. Part of it came to rest against an apartment tower, buckling its facade and smashing it upper floors. That building and others in the area were evacuated. Another piece of the crane hit other buildings on the block, ripping away walls and ceilings and crushing a small building.

Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who takes over as governor for Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Monday, praised firefighters for taking "great risks" as they navigated the twisted brick and steel of the ruins to search for victims.

"Although we lost four lives, there were Herculean efforts to save three others," said Paterson, in town to meet with senior staff members. "It's a horrible situation, very gory. There's blood in the street," he said.

WCBS-TV's chopper showed firefighters clambering through piles of rubble, several stories high, looking for victims.

A huge dust cloud rose over the neighborhood after the accident, but it settled quickly. Witnesses were reporting a strong smell of gas in the area. Some described the ground beneath the crane appearing to give way as it began to topple. Gas utility Consolidated Edison said it shut off service to area buildings.

Police blocked traffic in the area. Onlookers crowded the streets, snapping cell phone pictures and stopping to point at the wreckage. Fire trucks filled area streets and chunks of the building littered the ground.

Neighborhood residents said they had complained to the city several times about the construction at the site, saying crews worked illegal hours and the building was going up too fast.

The catastrophe comes amid a building boom in New York City and follows a spate of construction accidents in recent months, including some involving cranes, though none as massive.

Earlier this year, a crane's nylon sling broke away and dropped seven tons of steel onto a construction trailer across from ground zero, injuring an architect. Last month, a worker at a Donald Trump hotel-condominium tower in SoHo plummeted 40 stories to his death when a concrete form gave way.

New York Crane was involved in a 2006 mishap, in which a 13-foot piece of a crane mast that was being dismantled fell into the street and crushed a taxi cab.

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