PHILADELPHIA (KYW) — One person has died and at least two people are missing after a partial parking garage collapse in Philadelphia’s Grays Ferry neighborhood Wednesday afternoon, police said.
Police said emergency crews are searching for at least two people trapped. One construction worker was rushed to an area hospital, where police said he later died.
Reports of the building collapse came across dispatch shortly after 2 p.m., Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson said.
The seven-story parking garage is located at 3000 Grays Ferry Avenue. Thompson said the building is compromised and crews are working on stabilizing the structure before resuming search and rescue operations.
“We have the right people on location to get this job done,” Thompson said. “It’s going to take some time because we have to stabilize this building for the safety of everyone involved.”
Thompson would not comment on how many people are missing when asked during a press conference.
Chopper 3 was live over the scene, showing part of the garage that had collapsed. The collapse appears to have happened on the first floor of a parking garage under construction.
A witness who was on her lunch break told CBS News Philadelphia that the collapse “sounded like a train falling.”
“It was just a whole bunch of noise, and then I turned around, and there was a whole bunch of debris,” she said. “You just see everybody running over, all the construction workers. … Looked up and you see the crane halfway up, and it started to come back down. But there was nothing on the crane.”
According to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia website, the garage is being built to expand employee parking. Before its construction, however, many people in the community sought to stop the project, citing issues with traffic, pollution and health risks to the neighborhood.
CBS News Philadelphia has reached out to CHOP and is waiting to hear back.
A spokesperson for the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections said they have an inspector headed to the scene.
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