A large crane collapsed in New York City today, killing one person and damaging an apartment building on Manhattan's Upper East Side - a day after city officials investigated the crane's operations.
The crane operator died in the collapse shortly after 8am, two more construction workers were seriously injured and a pedestrian received minor injuries, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and police said.
Mr Bloomberg said the top section of the crane broke off and smashed into an apartment building called The Electra, which is more than 20 floors high, on 91st Street and First Avenue.
"We don't know why it snapped off and we will certainly do an investigation," he said.
The crane was being used to build a 32-story apartment building across the street. Mr Bloomberg said seven buildings had been evacuated while the stability of the crane section still standing was checked.
Television footage showed part of the crane in a crumpled mess in the street and a corner apartment at the top of The Electra that had been demolished. Balconies had also been ripped from apartments on The Electra as the crane fell.
New York City's Department of Buildings visited the site yesterday after receiving a complaint about the crane hoisting over the street, which is a building code violation, said acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri.
"Yesterday's investigation was about an inspection about hoisting over the street, not about the crane and the way it was installed," LiMandri said.
The crane, owned by New York Crane Corp., was being used by DeMatteis Organizations to build the Azure apartment building,LiMandri said. The company is also constructing the new US mission to the United Nations across the road from the UN headquarters.
In March, a giant crane fell and crushed a residential building in midtown Manhattan, killing seven people and injuring more than 10 others. In October, a crane dropped a container of debris from the 53rd floor of a skyscraper near Times Square, injuring several people.
Mr Bloomberg told local radio today that public safety was top priority and that the city would not "tolerate any rate of accidents higher than it has to be."
"This is just unacceptable and we have got to figure out what happened here," he said. "The public walking by shouldn't be at risk."