The Seattle fire chief, Harold Scoggins, said in a news conference that two of the four people killed were crane operators and the other two were in separate vehicles. He did not say if the cars were moving or stopped in the street at the time of the collapse.
The Fire Department said three other people were injured. Those injuries were not considered life-threatening, the chief said. The department could not immediately be reached for further comment.
“My thoughts and prayers are with those killed and injured,” Jenny Durkan, the mayor of Seattle, said in a tweet.
It was not immediately clear what caused the crane to fall or whether construction was going on at the time of the collapse.
Some said on social media that they had observed strong winds in the area of the collapse, but the National Weather Service said on Twitter that wind measurements nearby at the time registered gusts of 18 and 23 mph.
“Would not consider these strong wind gusts,” the Weather Service wrote.
Images shared on social media captured the dramatic aftermath of the crane’s collapse. At least one part of the yellow crane could be seen in the street as emergency personnel gathered. Other images showed another piece of the crane on top of the building.
Once home to the city’s logging and maritime industries, the South Lake Union neighborhood, where the crane fell, has grown substantially in the last 15 years, like Seattle as a whole. Many technology companies and research laboratories are there, along with restaurants and residential buildings.
Amazon and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance have offices in the neighborhood, according to the South Lake Union Chamber of Commerce.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.