Officials say 4 people were hospitalized after a crane collapsed at a Miami construction site

MIAMI (AP) — A crane towering over a construction site in an upscale Miami neighborhood toppled onto a passing vehicle Monday morning, setting it on fire and injuring the driver and three construction workers, officials said.

The collapse occurred shortly after 8 a.m. in the city’s Brickell neighborhood. Miami Fire Chief Robert Hevia said at a news conference Monday that he was thankful no one was killed in the crane collapse and car fire.

“I’ve been on the fire department for 28 years, when you see the scene, it’s impressive," Hevia said. “The fact that we had four victims, and they were all able to be extricated or self-extricate themselves with minor injuries is a remarkable day for them.”

A woman driving on a street next to the construction site saw the crane begin to fall over, Hevia said.

“To be able to see the crane falling, pull the car in reverse and pop out of the back while the car’s on fire, really incredible,” he said, adding that the crane also crushed two unoccupied parked cars but fell on a storage container with two construction workers inside.

The two workers who had been trapped, along with the crane operator who managed to jump out as the crane was tipping over, were all transported to a nearby trauma center with minor injuries, Hevia said. The woman driving the car also had minor injuries and was taken to a different hospital. Officials haven’t identified the injured.

“It was a very complex scene with a fire that was occurring; our crews were putting out the fire and our technical rescue team working simultaneously to cut through the conex box, the construction box, and they were able to successfully extricate the two victims,” Hevia said, confirming that all other workers at the construction site were accounted for.

Officials have not said what caused the crane, specifically a piling rig, to topple, and Hevia said the collapse is under investigation. A piling rig usually shares the same base as a traditional crane, but its upper part is designed to drive columns deep into the ground to support large structures.

Investigators walk around damaged cars after a large construction crane collapsed Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Workers stand near the site where a large construction crane collapsed, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

A person stands beside a large construction crane after it collapsed, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

A large construction crane collapsed and crushed a car on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

This image taken from a WSVN video shows Miami authorities responding to the scene of a crane that collapsed at a Miami construction site Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (WSVN via AP)

This image taken from a WSVN video shows Miami authorities responding to the scene of a crane that collapsed at a Miami construction site Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (WSVN via AP)

This image taken from a WSVN video shows a crushed vehicle after a crane collapsed at a Miami construction site Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (WSVN via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it is repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action the agency said would remove more than $300 billion in costs for the industry and help “unleash” American energy. The rule change, first proposed last year, represents a fundamental shift from efforts by Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to address climate change and clean up industrial pollution. EPA officials said the change would allow utilities to make the best decisions for their ratepayers rather than be forced to close aging or inefficient plants.

The rule, which is expected to face immediate legal challenges, also could prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

EPA chief Lee Zeldin, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are hosting a G20 ministerial meeting on “energy abundance” in Houston. The site is both a nod to the important role the oil-rich state plays in the energy industry and a potential snub of European and other international allies in attendance who have pursued environmentally friendly policies that the Trump administration has moved to undo.

Republican President Donald Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” at a speech to the United Nations last year, and his administration withdrew the U.S. — for the second time — from the 2015 Paris climate accord that sets voluntary goals to curb planet-warming emissions.

Trump has boasted of U.S. energy abundance even as the Iran war continues to disrupt global fuel markets and gas prices top $4.31 a gallon, up more than a dollar from a year ago.

The rollbacks are meant to fulfill Trump’s repeated pledge to “ unleash American energy ” and make it easier for utilities to supply electricity for homes and businesses.

The power plant rule is among nearly three dozen environmental regulations that Zeldin targeted in early 2025 when he announced what he called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history.”

Zeldin said in proposing the new rules last year that they were meant to end the Biden and Obama administrations’ “war on so much of our U.S. domestic energy supply.”

Environmental and public health groups called the rollbacks dangerous and vowed to challenge the rules in court.

“Tearing down our national protections against climate pollution from power plants will have enormous costs for the health, safety and well-being of families across the country,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. “Americans everywhere are already suffering from record-breaking heat, more dangerous floods and storms, and skyrocketing insurance costs.”

The EPA has a legal responsibility to protect the public from harmful pollution, Patton said, adding that “clean, affordable and reliable technologies are widely available to power our homes and businesses.”

Coal, gas and oil-fired power plants are responsible for about one-quarter of the nation’s total climate pollution, second only to the transportation sector. Pollution from power plants is one of the largest sources of climate-changing pollution in the world.

The rules targeted by Trump’s EPA could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect, according to an Associated Press examination last year that included the agency’s own prior assessments and a wide range of other research.

Even a partial dismantling of the rules would mean more pollutants such as smog, mercury and lead — and especially more tiny airborne particles that can lodge in lungs and cause health problems, the AP analysis found. It would also mean higher emissions of greenhouse gases, driving Earth’s warming to deadlier levels.

Biden, a Democrat, had made fighting climate change a hallmark of his presidency. Coal-fired power plants would have been forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a strict EPA rule issued in 2024. Those rules are now being upended.

In its proposal last year, the Trump EPA argued that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from fossil fuel-fired power plants “do not contribute significantly to dangerous pollution” or climate change and therefore do not meet a threshold under the Clean Air Act for regulatory action. Greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas-fired plants “are a small and decreasing part of global emissions,″ the EPA said.

Zeldin, a Republican and former New York congressman, said Biden-era actions were designed to “suffocate our economy in order to protect the environment,” with the intent to regulate the coal industry “out of existence” and make it “disappear.”

The coal industry and groups representing coal-fired power plants have denounced the Biden rule as “overreach” by the EPA and urged its repeal. Lifting the rule will protect grid reliability and shield electricity consumers from higher costs at a time of surging demand from data centers, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing, according to America’s Power, a trade organization for the U.S. coal fleet.

FILE - A barge on the Ohio River moves past the Mountaineer Power Plant, a coal-fired power plant near New Haven, W.Va., March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

FILE - Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin listens as President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, June 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)