Until Friday evening, the scene of a Toronto construction accident remained too perilous to remove all the bodies of workers killed the day before. (CBC)

Crews at the scene of a fatal Toronto construction accident removed the remaining two bodies Friday from the wreckage of a collapse that killed four workers the day before.

A swing stage at an apartment building near Kipling Avenue and Steeles Avenue West snapped Thursday afternoon, plunging four men 13 storeys to their deaths. Another man was critically injured and remained in hospital Friday night with life-threatening injuries.

Two bodies were recovered shortly after the incident, but parts of the work platform continued to dangle amid strong winds, making it unsafe to retrieve the other bodies until the swing stage could be secured Friday.

The staging gave way just after 4:30 p.m. ET Thursday while the men were repairing balconies on the 18-storey building. People who live in the apartment complex phoned 911 to report the accident, police said.

"The scene is so terrible. Most of the people have just died on the spot," said Steve Mohube, a resident in the building. "It was really, you know, disbelief for the entire building."

Police said all the men had safety harnesses, but they could not say whether the harnesses had been attached. Construction worker Giulio Paglia, who was at the scene Friday, said he doesn't think they were.

"These guys wearing safety lines all the time, they should have been hanging there, not fall down," he said.

Investigators from Ontario's Ministry of Labour and Toronto police are looking into the incident.

Police said the victims were of European backgrounds, but they wouldn't release identifying information until their families could be notified.