Immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn leans on faith and community
Leonor Yupa dropped to her knees Thursday when a Spanish-language media reporter said her 22-year old son was among eight people whose lives were claimed by the Brooklyn building collapse the day before.
Official response and confirmed impact
“I want my son!
I want my son!” the Ecuadorian mother cried in Spanish as family members tried to hold Yupa up and others who gathered at Bethesda Church of God in Christ assured her the reports were unconfirmed.
The agonizing cries of another woman who just lost her husband reverberated through the Brooklyn sanctuary across the street from the collapse.
When the woman learned her husband’s body was pulled from the debris Thursday morning, she collapsed and wailed her husband’s name. “Tomás!
Tomasito!” she cried. Family members gathered around the widow and formed a prayer circle. Just outside the church, a nervous father also prayed.
He was anxiously waiting to learn the fate of his son, a construction worker who has not been reachable since the collapse.
In the Flatbush neighborhood – home to a mix of immigrant communities – six adults and two children had died and over a dozen were injured after the three-story mixed-use building collapsed on Veterans Day, a day on which many families stayed home.
