Two New Yorkers died and two were seriously injured when a construction crane smashed through an apartment block in Manhattan’s Upper East Side today.

The accident happened when the arm and cab of the crane sheared off and smashed through the roof of the 23-storey block before hurtling to the ground on First Avenue.

Peter Barba, who lives opposite the site, said: “The sound was like a thunderclap, then an earthquake.”

The New York Fire Department pulled several people out of the wreckage. Despite earlier reports that he may have survived, it is thought that the crane worker was killed along with a construction worker.

The upper-floor balconies of the apartment block were severely damaged and a hole several stories long has been ripped into the side of building.

Chaos enveloped the residential neighbourhood as dozens of emergency vehicles rushed to the scene during the morning rush hour.

Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, said on his morning radio show that the collapse was “unacceptable,” and the city would investigate.

The accident is the latest in a spate of fatal construction accidents in recent months and less than two weeks after Mr Bloomberg pledged to improve the safety of building sites. He announced that additional safety inspectors would be hired a few days after the city’s buildings commissioner resigned due to the rising number of deadly accidents.

“We are in the midst of a historic building boom, and the added development demands that we devote sufficient resources to aggressively enforce site safety,” he said at the time.

In March, a crane gave way in midtown Manhattan near the United Nations, killing seven people and obliterating a townhouse.

In that incident, the crane toppled after a steel collar used to tie it to the side of the building fell as workers attempted to install it. All but one of the dead were construction workers - the other was a woman inside the townhouse.

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