The second floor of the lower Manhattan car park collapsed on to the first, New York emergency officials said, according to CBS News.

Video footage from the scene cited by CBS News showed a rescue operation getting underway.

But firefighters responding to the collapse were pulled back from the immediate scene "out of concerns about the structural stability of the building," the New York City Fire Department said in a statement.

In the meantime, emergency personnel were doing their best to account for anyone who may have been trapped, the department said.

"It felt like an earthquake," said Liam Gaeta, a student at nearby Pace University. He said he heard "a large noise and a big rumbling, and then we all got evacuated."

The collapse happened in the late afternoon at a parking structure on Ann Street, about half a mile from the New York Stock Exchange.

Mayor Eric Adams was briefed on the collapse and was heading to the scene to survey the damage, his spokesperson said on Twitter.