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NEW YORK (CBS) ― While rescue crews are still searching for three missing people, investigators believe they have pinpointed the cause of the crane collapse, as they take the crane apart, piece-by-piece.

So far, four victims have been officially named, while emergency officials are still looking for three missing people - two construction workers and a woman visiting from Miami.

At a press conference Sunday, investigators focused on the metal collars that should have kept the crane in place, and failed to do so, causing the entire structure to fall.

"Each passing hour, things get a little more grim," Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said. Twenty-four others were injured, including 11 first responders, said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Eight remained hospitalized Sunday, officials said.

Fire officials say they expect that pieces of the towering crane that collapsed on several Manhattan buildings will be completely removed between midnight and 5 a.m. tomorrow.

"I warned the Buildings Department on March 4 that it was not sufficiently braced against the building," said Bruce Silberblatt, a retired contractor and vice president of the Turtle Bay Neighborhood Association.

Retired ironworker Kerry Walker, who with his wife lived in the top-floor apartment of the four-story town house and left minutes before the collapse, had complained that the crane appeared dangerously unstable, his stepson said.

"He knows all about cranes and said this one had no braces, everything was too minimal," John Viscardi said. "He told one friend on the phone that 'if you don't hear from me, it's because the crane fell on my house."'

The crane was attached to an apartment tower under construction on East 51st Street east of Second Avenue when it broke away from its anchors Saturday and toppled south, crashing into buildings on 51st and 50th streets.

Next to the destroyed brownstone, a six-story gray apartment building on 50th Street and Second Avenue was missing an upper corner, as if a giant had clawed it. Dusty furniture and paintings were visible from the street.

City officials said the crane was inspected Friday. At day later, it was being lengthened with a new section, a process known as "jumping," when it fell.

Bloomberg said mechanical failure or human error may have caused the accident. "As far as we can tell, all procedures that were called for were being followed," he said.

Bloomberg said that about 250 cranes are operating in the city on any given day, and the accident should not alarm New Yorkers living near high-rise construction sites.

"Do I think that you should worry if there's a crane across the street? No," Bloomberg said. "This is such a rare thing that I don't think we should worry about it."

The city had issued 13 violations in the past 27 months to the construction site where a 43-story high-rise condominium was going up. "Every large construction site has violations," Bloomberg said.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said Bloomberg should form a multi-agency task force to inspect major construction projects.

"It is unacceptable for the Department of Buildings to say yesterday that the 13 open violations on this construction site were ... business as usual," Stringer said. "We can't keep going on like this."

The dead were identified as Wayne Bliedner, 51, of Pelham; Brad Cohen, of Farmingdale; Anthony Mazza, 39, of Staten Island; and Aaron Stephens, 45, of the Bronx.

The missing woman had come from Miami to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and visit a friend who lived in the brownstone, said John LaGreco, owner of Fubar, a saloon on the ground floor.

She was in her friend's second-floor apartment at the time of the collapse, he said. Her friend was rescued, he said.

On Sunday, the Reliance Construction Group, the project's contractor released a statement expressing sympathy to the families of the dead and the injured and said it was cooperating with government investigators.

Reliance said it had subcontracted different parts of the job and that New York Crane owned the crane. A telephone message left with New York Crane Sunday wasn't returned.

The collapse comes amid a building boom in New York City and follows a spate of construction accidents in recent months, including a few involving cranes.

In 2006, a 13-foot piece of a crane mast that was being dismantled fell and crushed a taxicab.

City officials said better inspections are needed to prevent against future accidents.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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