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Speaking from the scene, Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed that one construction worker was killed and two others seriously injured in this morning’s crane collapse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side the second deadly collapse this year.

The mayor said the crane atop a residential building under construction at 333 E. 91st Street appears to have fallen off at or near the 12th floor. The cab of the crane snapped off and the tower appears to have struck the building across the street at 354 E. 91st Street, smashing into a corner office, which is believed to have been unoccupied at the time. It then fell to the street below.

The crane operator was in the cab at the time of the crash. One pedestrian on the street below suffered minor injuries, but has since been treated.

Eight violations had previously been issued at the site, and an inspector had made a visit last weekend to oversee the crane being raised. Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri says an inspector was also there yesterday after complaints of the crane being hoisted over the street. That complaint is still under investigation.

LiMandri says a team of engineers hired by the city in the wake of March’s crane collapse will investigate the accident.

“They will also look at the Department of Buildings construction code, they will look at OSHA regulations, they will look at national standards, and they will look at the current regulations scheme that goes towards crane safety and concrete operations,” he said. “In addition they will make recommendations as they see fit. And once that goes into effect we will not wait for a report, we will institute that on rolling basis.”

Bloomberg says it remains unclear why the top snapped off, but says the city will conduct an investigation. Hundreds of firefighters and rescue workers continue to search through the wreckage, but the mayor says there is no reason to believe anyone is under it.

This morning’s collapse comes on the heels of a major overhaul in the Department of Buildings after a crane collapse on March 15th killed seven people and damaged several area buildings in Manhattan’s Turtle Bay.

But, when asked what he believes is wrong with the DOB, the mayor defended the agency.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the DOB. DOB didn’t crash; it was the crane that collapsed,” said Bloomberg. “The question that we need to make sure is, ‘do we have the appropriate level of inspection and the appropriate regulations as to what kind of cranes you can use. Keep in mind that construction is a dangerous business and you will always have fatalities.”

The mayor added that while the two crane collapses within a short period of time may appear to be a pattern, but that there is no reason to believe they are connected. Also, the crane that collapsed this morning is a different kind of crane than the one that collapsed in March.

A construction worker at the site told NY1 that it is unclear why the crane collapsed.

“The tie-ins are still intact which means it was most likely a problem with the top of the crane. It must have been it couldn’t take the pressure,” she said. “But there were no loads on it, so we really don’t know why it would fall if there’s no loads. We didn’t have anything. It was swinging around by itself, so we don’t exactly know why it would fall like that.”

The worker added that all of the proper inspections had been conducted.

“They was on us like white on rice. We all had to wear harnesses. Most things that they normally wouldn’t tell us to do, we definitely had to do that,” she said. “We had inspectors every day, building inspectors, inspectors from our union to make sure we was doing everything correctly. We had inspectors from the bottom up. Local of itself had their own inspectors come in. So we really don’t know how this can happen ’cause they were on us.”

Area residents described a chaotic scene. Matt Bryant, a resident of the building at 354 East 91st Street that was hit by the crane says it hit the 23rd floor one floor above his apartment. Bryant says he heard a loud noise and felt shaking when the crane collapsed but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary before the collapse.

“The sound was like a thunderclap, like a big crack, like a lightning strike and then it felt like an earthquake was happening in the building,” added another resident. “The first thing I did was I immediately went to check on my neighbors the woman in the corner whose apartment was hit pretty bad by it. It blew out her window. Structurally it took out her terrace and she was in a panic state.”

A man from the same building said he had just stepped out when he got a desperate call from his girlfriend that the crane had hit and that water was flooding into the apartment.

“I was sleeping, so it felt like an earthquake and then I woke up and my wall was basically smashed out with glass,” added another resident in the building that was hit. “So, it was just glass everywhere. I could hear the people screaming outside. I looked outside there was fire. So I just got my roommate, got my dog and put clothes on and got out of there.”

A union representative for the New York City carpenters says one of his members was rushed to the hospital, but is said to be doing well.

“I was in my apartment, I had pictures falling off the wall, I thought it was an earthquake,” said the roommate. “Terrifying, absolutely terrifying, and then we were made to evacuate our building. It was awful, it was awful, my next door neighbor’s balcony completely wiped out, flooded apartment, it was awful. Awful.”

The mayor said the city’s first concern is to stabilize the area. Several buildings have been evacuated as a precaution because the vertical part of the crane is still standing and it remains unclear whether it is stable. He added that evacuated residents will be allowed to return at some point later today or tomorrow.

About 160 apartments altogether have been evacuated in the following seven buildings: 354 E. 91st Street (which is the building that was hit by the crane); and 400, 401, 403, and 404 E. 91st Street; and 1750, 1752, 1754 First Avenue.

The Red Cross also has several people on the scene and says it will provide shelter to those in need.

Many who spoke to NY1 said they were shocked that a crane collapse could happen just two and a half months after the deadly crane accident in March, which led to the arrest of a crane inspector and the resignation of DOB Commissioner Patricia Lancaster.

In April, the DOB launched a $4 million initiative to examine construction sites around the city, sending 20 engineering experts to investigate crane operations, concrete operations and excavations.

The city has added extra inspections at building sites and required that its staff be on hand whenever the towering cranes were raised higher, a process known as a jump. Those procedures are still being revised.

Before today’s crash, 13 people had already died in construction related accidents around the city one more than all of 2007.

A number of streets remain closed in the area. Drivers going up First Avenue are being detoured at 86th Street. Crosstown traffic is not allowed to turn on 1st avenue between 79th and 86th Streets.

The MTA says that due to the crane collapse there are some bus service changes in the area. The M15, M31, M86, and X90 are all on detour.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) announced that a man attending a New York Mets game with his family lost his balance on an escalator and fell two stories to his death.

Antonio Nararainsami, 36, and several relatives, including his two young daughters, were leaving the stadium at the end of against on April 15, 2008 against the Washington Nationals when he fell in a section below the left field stands and landed on a concrete floor. Nararainsami, a Guyanese native who lived in Brooklyn, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead half an hour later.

Kevin Prashad, a cousin who attended the game, said Nararainsami was walking down the escalator, which wasn’t moving, and was holding the hand rail when he “lost his footing.”

The Mets said in a statement that they had been “advised of a tragic accident that resulted in the death of a fan.” They said team officials and police were investigating.

“Our deepest and heartfelt condolences go out to the fan’s family,” the team’s statement said.

The death of Nararainsami, who was wearing a Mets cap when he fell, appeared to be an accident, and no charges had been filed, police said.

Nararainsami installed heating and air conditioning systems for a living, loved sports and was the captain of a local cricket club, his relatives said. His wife, pregnant with their third child, had stayed home while he attended the game.

Nararainsami’s death wasn’t the first at Shea. In 1985, a 21-year-old Yonkers man fell 100 feet from an escalator and was killed.

Sucha Ram was getting ready to tar the roof of a building in the Bronx last year when he fell over the side, plunging 15 feet to his death. He was not wearing any fall-protection gear and had never received formal training in fall hazards, a report said.

Ram was a 52-year-old immigrant from India, the sole breadwinner of the family and part of a long line of casualties of New York City’s roaring construction industry in 2006. (more…)