Collapse at Brooklyn Bridge injures 5 people

Five pedestrians were hurt when several huge chunks of a stone ­facade fell off the Brooklyn Bridge in a freak accident Wednesday night, nypost.com reports, citing the FDNY.

The granite pieces fell onto an underpass of the span during a drenching downpour at about 7:30 p.m., clattering onto a sidewalk on the Brooklyn side at Washington and Prospect streets.

The unlucky five pedestrians struck by the decorative stones had been walking along the underpass.

They were taken to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for treatment of minor ­injuries.

The structural soundness of the bridge was not affected, FDNY ­officials said.

Fire and rescue units rushed to the scene as the thunderstorm continued.

Sniffer dogs were called in as a precaution, to check whether anyone had been buried under the rubble.

The damage affected a roughly 25-foot-wide section of the fabled span’s facade.

There was no word on what caused the stones to loosen, detach and fall.

The Department of Buildings was on site and inspecting.

An FDNY spokesperson ­described the loosened stones as having “substantial weight.”

Wednesday wasn’t the first time that pieces of the iconic 131-year-old bridge have broken off and plummeted.

In 1999, the span underwent a $35.5 million emergency repair job after pieces of the road deck began crumbling and falling into the East River.

Engineers at the time blamed the trouble on routine wear and tear.

In 2007, The Post catalogued corroded girders along the bridge’s promenade.

Rust had eaten through the paint and needed to be sandblasted off before the beams could be scanned for structural deficiencies and ­repainted.

Completed in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the nation. It carries roughly 150,000 vehicles and pedestrians daily.