Chaotic scenes of heavy lifting equipment and ambulances trying to pick their way through huge crowds and narrow streets gave way to anger over dilapidated property and unscrupulous owners, as residents demanded answers; after emergency services on Thursday said they had called off the search for survivors of a building collapse that killed at least nineteen in Lagos.
A pregnant woman, the proprietor of the nursery/Primary school and 19 others, including no fewer than 12 pupils reportedly died when the building at Massey Street came down without warning in the teeming Lagos Island area at 10:00am on Wednesday. However, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said eight persons died, while 34 others were rescued in the wreckage of the collapsed building. Huhuonline.com gathered that most of the victims were rescued from the rubble, but died at the General Hospital as doctors failed to save them. The pregnant woman was one of those rescued from the rubble, immediately after the building collapsed, but she died in the hospital.
Firefighters and other emergency services worked through the night to find anyone still trapped. One body was recovered in the early hours, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said. “We have gotten to ground zero,” added Kehinde Adebayo, spokesman for the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency. “The debris has been cleared. All those trapped have been evacuated and the rescue operation has ended.” Final casualty figures were still being compiled and would be announced later, he said. NEMA has said that 37 people were rescued alive.
Lagos State Emergency Management Agency did not give the number of the dead, but said it rescued 10 persons out of the wreckage. The agency said its rescue team and other agencies brought out 10 people alive, made up of 3 adult females, 1 adult male, 2 teenage boys, 1 young boy and 3 teenage girls.
Lagos State governor Akinwunmi Ambode said the building had been earmarked for demolition and a nursery and primary school were being run illegally on one of its floors. About 10 different families occupied the first and the ground floors, while the school occupied the second and fourth floors. The building at 63 Massey Street, it was learnt had been marked for demolition by officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency. School bags, toys and clothes were among the piles of rubble as a bulldozer tried to clear a path through wreckage.
The name of the school was given as Ohen Nursery and Primary, and there were reportedly 144 pupils in attendance on Wednesday. Lagos Island is the historic heart of the metropolis, which is home to an estimated 20 million people, and also home to its central business district. Building collapses are tragically common in the city and elsewhere in Nigeria, where building regulations are routinely flouted.
In September 2014, 116 people died — 84 of them South Africans — when a six-storey guesthouse collapsed at the Lagos church complex of celebrity televangelist TB Joshua. An inquiry found extra floors had been added without planning permission. Engineers responsible for the construction are currently on trial for manslaughter.
In 2016, at least 60 people were killed when the roof collapsed at a church in the southern city of Uyo. Afolabi blamed the government for the state of repair of many buildings on Lagos Island, many of which have been listed for demolition. “These houses are not safe. These buildings are not safe. We are about to enter the rainy season and these things will get worse,” she added.
Prominent Lagos builder and surveyor Alani Fasiu Amusa said the “unscrupulous activities” of some developers and property owners were to blame. “Why would somebody convert a residential building to a school for instance? Most of the buildings in central Lagos are old and cannot pass the structural integrity test,” he told AFP. “They were built many years ago with sub-standard materials and without the involvement of qualified building engineers.”
Many high-rise buildings being used for commercial purposes are not properly strengthened, making collapses more likely, he added. “The government should be strict in enforcing its building codes and regulations,” he said. “Landlords who convert residential buildings to commercial purposes should be sanctioned. All defective structures should be pulled down and the culprits brought to book to serve as deterrent to others.”
