Nigeria: 5 dead after Lagos building collapses

A five-storey building collapsed in Nigeria’s commercial city of Lagos on Tuesday morning, leaving five people dead, six rescued and many others still trapped, according to spokesman of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), South West Zone, Ibrahim Farinloye.

#Nigeria Death toll rises to 4 in Lagos building collapse https://t.co/MAq6YPbceN

— Osamuyi Okpame (@osamuyi) March 8, 2016

The building was still under construction, though had some of the workers living in it with their families.

Victor Suru, a bricklayer who moved from the neighbouring country of Benin Republic, said his brother, his wife and child died in the collapse.

“After they finished building the house rain fell and the house shifted a bit. So when it shifted they went to look for iron. They put iron in front of the house. The iron couldn’t hold the house. They left it like that and continued building. The workers continued their work, and then this morning we saw the house collapse. It killed many people, it killed our brothers. One of our Cotonou brothers with his wife and child, they just died,” Suru said.

Another eyewitness said the land used to be a river but was sand filled and not left to properly solidify before construction commenced.

“What happened in Lekki garden is a very bad thing, very bad, this sand they filled, they didn’t leave it, they were supposed to leave it for 10 years so that it could be strong before they built the house. They just sand filled it, they did not wait, they just started to work, all the work they did was bad. Our people here, you know everyone is looking for money to eat. Our people that died – very bad thing. No chance to go in, they did not allow us to assist for survivors. We begged them to let us enter to help our brothers in there,” he said.

Rescue operations are ongoing at the scene.

Pics from scene of building collapse in Lagos, #Nigeria 5 dead, 6 rescued alive – LASEMA pic.twitter.com/s3nExQsaWu

— Sharon Ogunleye (@Sharon_Ogunleye) March 8, 2016