The Seattle fire chief, Harold Scoggins, said in a news conference that two of the four people killed were crane operators and that the other two had been in separate vehicles. Four other people had non-life-threatening injuries, the Fire Department said.
A piece of the yellow crane was slashed across a seven-lane road Saturday afternoon, with crime scene tape cordoning off an area about five blocks long. At least one crushed car was still beneath the wreckage, a jarring contrast to the boxy glass and precise corners of the tech and research buildings common in the surrounding South Lake Union neighborhood.
Lights flashed from about 30 police vehicles as small groups of bystanders looked on.
Ceara Nicosia, who works for a biotechnology company with offices across the street, heard a rumble that she thought was an earthquake, and then a crash. She looked out a window to see a giant cloud of dust.
“It’s so normal to see construction; it’s been ongoing for the whole three years I’ve worked here,” she said. “You see the cranes everywhere but you don’t expect any of them to fall.”
It was not immediately clear what caused the crane to fall from the building, which is about six stories high. Construction on the site, which is being developed by Seattle-based Vulcan Inc., is still proceeding.
Eric Greening, an assistant chief with the Seattle Police Department, said at a news conference that “there was some work being done” Saturday, but he declined to provide further details.
The Fire Department referred questions about the investigation to the state’s Department of Labor and Industries. The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“My heart breaks for the families who have lost someone today and the workers who have lost fellow workers,” Jenny Durkan, the mayor of Seattle, said at a news conference. “Determining exactly how and why this happened is going to take a significant amount of time.”
The National Weather Service said on Twitter that wind measurements nearby at the time of the collapse registered gusts of 18 and 23 mph.
“Would not consider these strong wind gusts,” the Weather Service wrote.
Once home to the city’s logging and maritime industries, the South Lake Union neighborhood has grown substantially in the past 15 years, as has 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, and a Google logo can be seen on the building that the crane fell from.
Google said the site was slated to become the company’s Seattle campus, but it had not yet moved in because the site was under construction.
Vulcan, which was established by Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, said in a statement that contractors working on the site “are fully cooperating with the authorities investigating this incident.”
“Our deepest sympathies go out to the families who have lost loved ones, and our hope is that those who have been injured return to full health as soon as possible,” the statement said.
The Seattle Times reported this year that the construction of high-rises has meant that the city has more cranes than any other city in the United States for the third year in a row.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.