A house collapsed in Syracuse, New York, on Tuesday afternoon, injuring at least 11 people, officials said.
Syracuse Fire Chief Michael Monds told reporters in a news briefing that crews responded to reports of an “explosion” and collapse at the home, arriving to find “multiple victims outside.” Firefighters had to pull at least one youth out of a car buried in the rubble, he said.
“The building was indeed collapsed,” Monds said. “It was a very dangerous scene. There were power lines down and the dangerous odor of gas.”
In a follow-up news briefing late Tuesday night, Monds said that extensive searches of the home using K9s found no bodies. The fire chief said that there were believed to be 13 people inside the home when the collapse occurred, and that all of them have been accounted for.
“We have no reason to believe that nobody is unaccounted for,” Monds said. “All the people — from the bystanders and people that were in the home — are saying that there were 13 people. And those we believe are the 13 people that made it to the hospital.”
The 11 patients, a mix of children and adults, were taken to Upstate University Hospital, and two of them were in very serious condition, Monds said.
Police and fire officials will be investigating what caused the collapse of the home, which dates to 1920, the police chief said.
More than 50 firefighters responded to the collapse and had to be rotated in and out due to the extreme heat that bore down on Syracuse and other parts of the country Tuesday, Monds said.
Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said he spoke with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul about the incident.
“Gov. Hochul reached out directly, I spoke with her,” Walsh said. “Commissioner of Homeland Security for New York state reached out as I was on my way to the scene, (and also) spoke with the county executive. And again, just a credit to all agencies involved, but especially our first responders.”
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