A four-storey building has collapsed in New York City’s lower Manhattan, killing at least one worker and injuring five others who were in the structure, authorities say.

Police said they had no reason to believe the incident was anything other than a structural collapse.

The second floor of a garage structure collapsed onto the first, New York City emergency officials said, according to CBS television’s New York affiliate.

Video footage from the scene cited by CBS and ABC affiliates showed a rescue operation under way and multiple cars stacked on top of one another amid crumpled concrete.

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.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was briefed on the collapse and was heading to the scene to survey the damage, his representative said on Twitter.

-AAP