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Mar 17, 2008 3:01 pm US/Eastern
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Hialeah Woman Found In Crane Collapse Debris
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
The body of a Hialeah woman was pulled from the wreckage of a New York City brownstone that was crushed during a crane collapse on Saturday.
Odin Torres had gone to New York to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a friend who lived in the town house, said John LaGreco, owner of Fubar, a saloon located on the ground floor of the building.
"Torres was in her friend's second-floor apartment at the time of the accident," said LaGreco, "her friend was rescued."
Four construction workers were killed in the collapse that damaged six buildings. The bodies of two more construction workers were pulled from the rubble early Monday morning.
Over the weekend, debris was cleared "delicately and meticulously" to prevent further damage, said Buildings Department Commissioner Pat Lancaster, who joined the mayor and other officials at the scene.
Crews also removed a 25-foot section of the white crane that broke into pieces Saturday afternoon, and had about 180 feet left to remove, along with piles of the debris from the damaged buildings, Lancaster said.
The crane rose 19 stories and was attached to an apartment tower under construction when it broke away, toppling like a tree onto buildings as far as a block away.
Twenty-four people including 11 first responders were injured in the collapse; eight remain hospitalized.
Officials were investigating whether human or mechanical error led to the construction-site accident, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg described as among the city's worst.
City officials said the crane was inspected Friday. At day later, it was being lengthened with a new section, a process known as "jumping," when it fell.
Bloomberg said mechanical failure or human error may have caused the accident. "As far as we can tell, all procedures that were called for were being followed," he said.
Bloomberg said that about 250 cranes are operating in the city on any given day, and the accident should not alarm New Yorkers living near high-rise construction sites.
"Do I think that you should worry if there's a crane across the street? No," Bloomberg said. "This is such a rare thing that I don't think we should worry about it."
The city had issued 13 violations in the past 27 months to the construction site where a 43-story high-rise condominium was going up.
"Every large construction site has violations," Bloomberg said.
Investigators were focusing on a heavy-duty collar used to tie the crane to the building's side, including whether a series of hoists and nylon straps was strong enough to sustain its weight.
The city had answered 38 complaints and issued more than a dozen violations in the past 27 months to the construction site where a 43-story high-rise condominium was going up. None of the violations was related to the crane, Bloomberg said.
On Sunday, the Reliance Construction Group, the project's contractor, released a statement expressing sympathy to the families of the dead and injured and said it was cooperating with government investigators.
"We have already launched our own internal investigation to understand exactly what caused this tragedy and we believe it is prudent not to comment further at this time," the company said.
Reliance said it had subcontracted different parts of the job and that New York Crane owned the crane.
Retired ironworker Kerry Walker, who with his wife lived in the top-floor apartment of the four-story town house and left minutes before the collapse, had complained that the crane appeared dangerously unstable, his stepson said.
"He knows all about cranes and said this one had no braces, everything was too minimal," John Viscardi said. "He told one friend on the phone that 'if you don't hear from me, it's because the crane fell on my house."'
The collapse comes amid a building boom in New York City and follows a spate of construction accidents in recent months, including a few involving cranes.
In 2006, a 13-foot piece of a crane mast that was being dismantled fell and crushed a taxicab.
City officials said better inspections are needed to prevent against future accidents.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)