A tragic incident occurred early Thursday morning when a building under construction at 13 Wilson Mba Street, Arowojobe Estate, Maryland, Lagos, collapsed, resulting in the deaths of five workers.
The collapse happened at 3:49 am in the Maryland area of Lagos State, Nigeria.
Olufemi Damilola Oke-Osanyintolu, the head of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), confirmed the incident in a statement. He reported that five adult males were rescued alive from the scene.
“The Agency responded to the incident and discovered that a set of three terraces under construction had collapsed,” Oke-Osanyintolu stated. “Search and rescue operations began immediately.
Five adult males were recovered dead, while four adult males were rescued alive. Another adult male, trapped under the rubble, was rescued alive by LASEMA and the Lagos State Fire Service.”
All the victims were construction site workers. The rescued individuals received pre-hospital care at the site before being transported to the hospital. The State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit (SEHMU) was contacted to handle the remains of the deceased.
“LASEMA’s excavator has been deployed to accelerate the search and rescue operations,” Oke-Osanyintolu added.
Lagos has experienced a series of building collapses in recent weeks, exacerbated by flooding. Earlier in July, seven people were rescued from a collapsed two-storey building in the Mushin area, and ten others were rescued from a building collapse in Isale Eko in May.
Beyond Lagos, a school collapse in the Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State earlier this month resulted in 22 deaths and 132 injuries.
