Six Dead in São Paulo's Penha Collapse — and the Inspection That Never Happened

Firefighters and rescue team members of Sao Paulo's city municipal government work at the site of a building collapse, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on September 12, 2026. Two women --one of them pregnant-- died, and at least eight people were injured after a building under construction collapsed onto a house in the early hours of the morning. (Credit: Photo by Nelson ALMEIDA / AFP via Getty Images)

A Tower Comes Down on a Sleeping Household

The structure gave way around 2 a.m. on September 12, crashing onto a house on Rua Tequici in the Penha district of eastern São Paulo. Fire crews eventually logged roughly 70 firefighters and 22 vehicles at the scene as the death toll climbed through the weekend. By Sunday afternoon, six bodies had been pulled from the rubble — three women, one of them pregnant, two men and a young girl — and the search was called off with no one else missing.