6 June 2013
Last updated at 04:31 GMT
The collapse happened around 10:30 local time (14:30 GMT) in the Center City neighbourhood.
The building was being demolished, though the cause of the collapse was unknown, officials said.
Early reports said just one person had died, but rescuers continued working into the night.
Mayor Michael Nutter said the dead included five women and one man.
"If anyone else is in that building, they will find them,'' he said.
Thirteen people were taken to hospital suffering minor injuries, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said.
Late on Wednesday, a 61-year-old woman was pulled alive from the rubble to become the 14th known survivor.
'Lucky ones' The four-storey building had both commercial and residential spaces.
Several witnesses said they had been concerned about the way the demolition was being carried out prior to the collapse.
"We've been calling it for the past week - it's going to fall, it's going to fall,'' window washer Dan Gillis told the Associated Press.
One person was pulled from the rubble in the early afternoon
Earlier, witnesses said they had heard a loud rumbling sound immediately beforehand.
"I was standing there looking out my window, watching the men at work on the building, and the next thing I know I heard something go kaboom," Veronica Haynes, who was in an apartment building nearby, said.
"Then you saw the whole side of the wall fall down... on to the other building.''
Bernie Ditomo told a local NBC broadcaster he was driving on a nearby street when he felt something "like an earthquake".
"I said, 'What the hell is going on?'," Mr Ditomo said. "My truck is totalled. I am a little dusty and dirty, but I'm alright. I am one of the lucky ones."
High school student Jordan McLaughlan said he saw several people on the ground being given oxygen by rescuers after the collapse as the air filled with dust.
Authorities asked news helicopters to clear the air over the scene so rescuers could hear people trapped under the rubble.
"This is delicate, it is dangerous work," Mr Ayers said.
President
Barack Obama has named Samantha Power to replace outgoing US ambassador
to the UN Susan Rice. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuter
Dozens of emergency workers rushed to the scene
Six people have died and
at least 14 have been hurt after a building collapsed in the centre of
the US city of Philadelphia, officials say.
A four-storey building fell down, sending debris on to a building housing a bustling Salvation Army shop.The collapse happened around 10:30 local time (14:30 GMT) in the Center City neighbourhood.
The building was being demolished, though the cause of the collapse was unknown, officials said.
Early reports said just one person had died, but rescuers continued working into the night.
Mayor Michael Nutter said the dead included five women and one man.
"If anyone else is in that building, they will find them,'' he said.
Thirteen people were taken to hospital suffering minor injuries, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said.
Late on Wednesday, a 61-year-old woman was pulled alive from the rubble to become the 14th known survivor.
'Lucky ones' The four-storey building had both commercial and residential spaces.
Several witnesses said they had been concerned about the way the demolition was being carried out prior to the collapse.
"We've been calling it for the past week - it's going to fall, it's going to fall,'' window washer Dan Gillis told the Associated Press.
One person was pulled from the rubble in the early afternoon
"I was standing there looking out my window, watching the men at work on the building, and the next thing I know I heard something go kaboom," Veronica Haynes, who was in an apartment building nearby, said.
"Then you saw the whole side of the wall fall down... on to the other building.''
Bernie Ditomo told a local NBC broadcaster he was driving on a nearby street when he felt something "like an earthquake".
"I said, 'What the hell is going on?'," Mr Ditomo said. "My truck is totalled. I am a little dusty and dirty, but I'm alright. I am one of the lucky ones."
High school student Jordan McLaughlan said he saw several people on the ground being given oxygen by rescuers after the collapse as the air filled with dust.
Authorities asked news helicopters to clear the air over the scene so rescuers could hear people trapped under the rubble.
"This is delicate, it is dangerous work," Mr Ayers said.
Irish-born woman named to post by President Barack Obama
President
Barack Obama has named Samantha Power to replace outgoing US ambassador
to the UN Susan Rice. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/ReuterNews from Irish Times First published: Thu, Jun 6, 2013, 05:00
United States president Barack Obama yesterday named Dublin-born former White House aide Samantha Poweras the next US ambassador to the United Nations.
Ms Power, a strong human rights advocate, will replace Susan Rice, who will take over as Mr Obama’s national security adviser following the decision of Tom Donilon to stand down.
An
award-winning author and former journalist, Ms Power was a special
assistant to the president and, until earlier this year, senior director
of multilateral affairs and human rights at the National Security Council.
She lived in the Dublin suburb of Castleknock until
age nine, and emigrated with her family to Pittsburgh in 1979 before
moving to Atlanta. She covered the Balkan Wars in the 1990s, filing news
reports to the Boston Globe, the Economist and the New Republican.
Her book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, won a Pulitzer Price after she graduated from Harvard in 1999, and marked her out as a foreign policy expert.
She played a crucial role in the Obama administration’s decision to intervene militarily in Libya in 2011.
She
left work in February to spend more time with her children, Declan and
Rian. She is married to Cass Sunstein, a former head of the White
House’s information and regulatory affairs office.
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