At least one person died and four were rushed to hospital with serious injuries after a multi-storey parking garage in New York City collapsed on Tuesday, emergency responders said.

Video footage posted on social media showed a huge pile of cars in a jumbled heap amid the piled concrete debris of the collapsed structure in Lower Manhattan financial district of the city.

The building on Ann Street “pancaked, collapsed, all the way to the cellar floor,” the acting head of New York’s buildings department, Kazimir Vilenchik, told a press conference at the scene.

While the exterior of the structure was still erect, officials said it was weak  and could come down any time.

The fire department’s chief of operations John Esposito said they had ordered all their initial responders out of the building — but that a robotics unit had been able to deploy a robot dog and fly drones inside to conduct searches, according to an AFP report.

He said they believed there had been six workers in the building when it collapsed. While one person died four of them were taken to hospital and the sixth refused medical treatment.

Esposito said the fire department believed everyone had been accounted for.

New Yorkers have been told to stay away from the area as it is dangerous..