By Uche Amunike
Two people have been confirmed dead after a 7-Storey building collapsed at Oba Idowu Oniru Street, Victoria Island, Lagos on Sunday at about 3am.
While some occupants were lucky to have escaped being either dead or trapped by a stroke of luck, some other unlucky ones didn’t make it and are still trapped in the debris of the collapsed building.
On arrival at the scene of the mishap, Life and Times correspondents observed emergency responders like Police operatives, the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, the National Emergency Management Agency and sympathizers, engaged in searching for the trapped victims and a rescue operation to that effect.
The collapsed building notably landed on the one-storey building next to it, causing damages to a part of the building. One of the residents of the one-storey building who craved anonymity, but eventually gave his name as ‘Segun’ explained that a loud bang woke him up from sleep and he didn’t know what to make of it.
His words: ‘We almost died when the building collapsed. It was the first floor that collapsed on our apartment that woke us. We were still arguing whether the remaining would collapse or not when the whole building caved in’.
‘We were trapped inside when it happened. We could not open the door; we had to come out through the window. I don’t sleep anytime I come to Lagos because of this building’.
‘I know an old man who is a bricklayer on the site of the collapsed building. He is about 75-year-old and I still saw him yesterday afternoon’, he explained.
On his part, one of the Labourers who works at another construction site opposite the collapsed building and who simply identified himself as ‘Idris’, explained that while the collapsed building was still under construction, he noticed certain structural defects and added that the load on the building was way too much for its capacity.
Hear him: ‘I am aware that the building started from scratch around June 2021. I noticed a bend in the building when it got to the fourth floor but couldn’t complain to anyone in order to avoid embarrassment or being seen as an intruder’.
He continued: ‘They won’t even listen or allow me to come near the building because of the inferiority complex. Only those far from the building can notice structural defects at the fourth’.
‘The load on the building was too much and the building should not have got to the eighth floor at all. I am usually afraid of the sight of the building and always careful enough not to spend up to one minute close to it.’
Another man who spoke his mind after the 7-Storey building collapsed in Lagos, was the Security man who is known as Abdullahi. He narrated that he was able to escape the tragedy because he hardly slept while at night. According to him, some of the workers were asleep when he noticed that the building was shaking.
He narrated: ‘There were too many complaints of missing building materials stolen from the site at night, so I was much awake when the incident happened’.
‘I was standing at the security post away from the uncompleted building when it started shaking. I quickly called out to the workers who were still sleeping at that time, but it was too late for many of them to respond before the building collapsed’.
‘About seven of them were trapped under the rubble of the seven-storey building, but two have been brought out dead. I don’t know if the rest are dead or alive. I am so shocked right now’.
The NEMA Lagos Territorial Coordinator, Ibrahim Farinloye, as well as the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin have both confirmed that two dead bodies have so far been recovered from the building collapse in Lagos, while about 6 others are still trapped in the rubbles.
