Victims of collapsed buildings still trapped

Watch video of collapsed building

More victims of Sunday's collapsed building at the Nigerian Railway Corporation Terminus at Iddo are still trapped in the debris.

When NEXT visited the scene of the accident on Monday, rescue work by the government was not going on as those rescued were seen in frantic search for their friends and family members.

Usman Bentu, a petty trader, who was rescued on Monday said his friend, Hakeem was still trapped.

"I dey lucky to come out with wound all over my body but my friend Hakeem still dey inside the collapsed building, because I no see am among the people wen die and the people wen dey hospital. Na yesterday dem carry caterpillar come work here, but today, we never see caterpillar," Mr. Bentu said.

Ojo Jimoh, another victim said more than fifty people were living in the building before the collapsed.

"We were more than fifty living in the building, so if they said that they rescued 36and eight people are dead, then there are more people still trapped. You can see that we the victims are the ones using shovels and diggers to search for missing persons since morning, the excavator that came yesterday had left and we have been left to suffer alone," Mr. Jimoh said.

Omolayo Thomas, the Director of the Mainland Local Government Elders and Advisory council, who represented the Council Chairman, said the local government will only pay compensation.

"I want you to know that there is nothing that the council can do than to compensate the victims. This is a Federal Government building. We hear that the building which was a warehouse was reconstructed into two storey residential building; the persons involved should be dealt with," Mr. Thomas said.

Kunle Awobodu, the chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Building, who visited the scene of the accident with other members of the organization, said the government should expedite effort to check incessant building collapse in the state.

"This is a very tragic thing, that we continue to lose lives in building collapses. We are not happy visiting collapsed sites. You can see that this building is very old, and even the sand and iron used are of low quality. Our technical committee has made recommendations to the government that will help stop these collapses but nothing has been done due to bureaucratic bottlenecks," Mr. Awobodu said.

Investigation by NEXT shows that more than twenty persons had died in the collapsed building.

"They said Red cross saw eight bodies, but we the victims had buried eighteen people, some bodies were taken to the village, while some were buried at Amokoko; we are Muslims so we did not allow our dead bodies to stay long," Mr. Bentu said.

When NEXT contacted the Lagos state Commissioner for Physical Planning and the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, they were said to be in a meeting.

The building, according to Mr. Jimoh, collapsed around 3.00am on Sunday after a heavy thunderstorm.

"We were sleeping, and we heard a terrible thunder, it was the thunder that collapsed the house. A pregnant woman and her three year old son also died," Mr. Jimoh added.

It will be recalled that since March, five buildings have collapsed in Lagos with more than thirty persons confirmed dead.