NEW YORK -- A crane collapsed at a New York City construction site Wednesday, injuring seven workers, authorities said.

Officials said the mobile crane unit collapsed shortly before 2:30 p.m. The construction site is behind the famed Pepsi-Cola sign in Long Island City, Queens.

Three construction workers were trapped under the crane and had to be extricated, an FDNY deputy chief on the scene said. The most seriously injured suffered broken bones.

'Everybody started running'
Carpenter Preston White said he was standing on scaffolding about 20 feet from the ground with some colleagues when the cable on the crane snapped while moving a stack of wood.

"You could hear the cable snap, and it recoiled back toward the crane," said White. "Everybody started running out of that way because that was all that was coming, the cable. And you heard a snap, and the next thing you know, the crane just buckled and it came crashing down."

"You could hear people screaming," he said. "You could hear people calling out, trying to find people. I was surprised I was still on the deck."

A 25-story residential building is being built on the site by developer TF Cornerstone.

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Matthew Knell, who lives across from the construction site, said he "heard a big bang."

Randall Todd said he was walking his dogs nearby when he heard the sound of what he described as breaking metal.

He looked over and saw "the top horizontal arm of the crane dropping, but it folded on itself, accordion-style, including the vertical tower, which seemed to snap in half."

The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear.

In a statement, TF Cornerstone said: "Site safety is always our first priority as it relates to construction, and we are cooperating fully with all relevant authorities to try and determine what caused this occurrence."

The work at the site was being carried out by subcontractor Cross Country Construction. The crane had been leased to Cross Country Construction by New York Crane.

Related stories:
Sandy causes crane collapse above one of NYC's tallest residential buildings 

Crane collapse in Manhattan kills 1, injures 4

Updated at 9:30 p.m. ET: Crews responded Monday to a crane hanging from the side of a luxury high-rise under construction in the heart of midtown Manhattan as New York began feeling the effects of approaching Superstorm Sandy.

Police have shut down traffic and evacuated the upper floors of buildings in the area around the building on West 57th Street, although there were no immediate plans to remove the crane because of the danger, WNBC reported. Officials were studying the situation and trying to decide how to deal with it.

The building, known as One 57, will be Manhattan's tallest residential tower when completed, at 90 stories. It already has gained a reputation as a new haven for billionaires who have been paying up to $90 million for choice apartments.

Passers-by stared in amazement and apprehension while some stopped to take pictures of the building.

"It's fascinating, I saw it on TV and came out to see it," Sam O' Keeffe, 25, a bartender who lives in the neighborhood, told Reuters. "But it's also scary. If it happened there, who knows where else it could happen?"

Firefighters closed streets for several blocks surrounding the site, evacuated 300 apartments in three buildings and were preparing to evacuate more.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the crane had been inspected on Friday, as other construction cranes had ahead of the storm, and that the cause of the accident remained unknown. Engineers went to the top of the building to examine the crane but stopped short of attempting any repairs, officials said.

"It's conceivable that nobody did anything wrong whatsoever and it wasn't even a malfunction, it was just a strange gust of wind," Bloomberg told a news conference.

"Just because it was inspected, that doesn't mean that God doesn't do things or that metal doesn't fail. There's no reason to think at this point in time that the inspection wasn't adequate," he said.

The crane swayed at the top of the building as the city was largely shut down ahead of the expected arrival of the massive hurricane slamming the East Coast and affecting up to 60 million people in nine states. The storm made landfall in New Jersey Monday evening.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Watch live: NBC camera shows crane boom dangling

Meg Roussos / The Dallas Morning News

A construction crane collapsed Saturday at University of Texas at Dallas.

RICHARDSON, Texas -- Two construction workers died when a crane collapsed on the University of Texas at Dallas' Richardson campus Saturday, university officials said.

The accident occurred around 3 p.m. in the 800 block of West Campbell Road in Richardson, NBCDFW.com reported.

The Dallas Morning News reported that Katherine Morales, the university's communications director, said the crane had been used to build a new arts and technology building and was being dismantled when the accident occurred.

See more at NBCDFW.com

The crane came down just as a weather front packing high wind gusts. NBC 5 Meteorologist Grant Johnston said 50-mph winds were blowing at the time, although it is not yet known whether the wind caused the collapse, NBCDFW.com reported.

UT Dallas asked students, staff and faculty to avoid the southeast side of campus.

Campus officials released the following statement: 

"There was an accident on the UT Dallas campus Saturday afternoon during the dismantling of a construction crane at the Arts and Technology Building. Two workers with an outside construction company are reported deceased. There are no reports of UT Dallas students, staff, or faculty injured in this accident."

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Tim Sharp / Reuters

Police cruisers block an intersection leading to the scene of the construction crane standoff in Dallas, Texas, Monday.

DALLAS -- The standoff between Dallas police and a man that climbed to the top of a construction crane on the campus of Southern Methodist University ended early Tuesday morning, when the man fell to his death.

At about 1 a.m. Dallas police used bright lights, loud directional sirens and the police helicopter to distract the man, while four SWAT officers climbed the crane to storm the cab believed to be 100 to 150 feet above the ground.

Police say the man sprayed a WD-40-like substance at officers as they entered the cab. He then climbed out the smashed windshield of the cab.

"He retreated to a position in the crane where he had one leg in a window and one leg outside the window, from there he went over the edge, and clung to the edge for a moment before he fell to his death," said Dallas Deputy Chief Randy Blankenbaker.

The man fell just before 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, ending a roughly 14-hour standoff.

"We at SMU are relieved this situation has been resolved and the campus is secure. We all regret the loss of life," said SMU spokesman Brad Cheves.

Read the full story at NBCDFW.com

Throughout the day, the suspect dropped items from the crane cab, including his shirt and shoes, some cans, a fire extinguisher, and other items that may have been inside the cab.

Tim Sharp / Reuters

A robbery suspect sits in the cab of a construction crane on the SMU campus, Monday.

Sources tell NBC 5 the man may have become ill during the standoff and vomited, perhaps due to the heat.

As night fell, Dallas police used a spotlight to shine light into the crane. Police also used noise machines to keep the man awake and talking.

Man is suspect in armed robbery
Police did confirmed Tuesday the man is the suspect connected to an overnight robbery about 2:30 a.m. Monday and that police dogs tracked the man's scent to the construction site.

David Cantu said he was putting sound and lighting equipment into the truck outside the Adolphus Hotel when a man jumped in and tried to stab him with something sharp, possibly a nail.

"I said, What are you doing?'" Cantu said. "He swung his arm at me with a sharp object and for the most part, I just backed off and let him do his thing."

Cantu said the man sped away, hitting several cars parked along Main Street.

"You hear a big bang multiple times," he said. "He's hitting multiple cars at that point."

The stolen truck was later found not far from the crane, according to police.

Chris Ghanbari, a freelance photographer who lives in a building overlooking the scene, got out his video camera and started rolling.

"I just started shooting a minute -- a minute-and-a-half -- of video of the crime scene," Ghanbari said. "About 30 minutes later, we had 10 to 15 police cars out there."

Here is his video:

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