Emergency agencies in Nigeria say 24 people have been rescued from a collapsed building in Abuja and three people have died after suffering fatal injuries. A building under construction has collapsed in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja with many feared trapped under its rubbles.
The three-storey structure with a basement was under construction when it came down on Thursday morning trapping an unidentified number of people, many of them workers.
The building is believed to have been planned for a commercial complex in Gwarinpa, a sprawling residential suburb of the Nigerian capital. The legs of one person trapped in the debris hung out from the rubble. Rescue workers were talking with others marooned under concrete floors and twisted wires.
Substandard materials and disregard for building regulations mean such collapses are not uncommon in Africa’s most populous nation, where infrastructure is old and poorly maintained. Federal Capital Territory Minister Bala Muhammed, who is responsible for development in Abuja, said the building had been condemned by the authorities and that the developers had continued to add an additional floor despite the warnings
A combined team of emergency and security agencies, including some construction companies with heavy duty equipment, was mobilised to the scene of the incident, and worked overnight digging through the rubble to try to save people trapped in the collapsed building.
Abbas Idris, head of the Federal Capital Territory’s Emergency Agency in Abuja, said that it had been a battle to rescue the people and that the building was poor quality: “We discovered that a lot of corners have been cut, there are substandard materials used in this construction. The persons we rescued have been taken to Gwarinpa General Hospital. We are working to rescue more victims,” he said.
