One person has been confirmed dead, with two persons trapped under the rubbles of a two-storey building believed to be a shopping mall under construction, near Aso savings in Kubwa, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, which collapsed over the night.
The Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to the Minister of FCT, Ikharo Attah, who confirmed the development to Tribune Online said; “Well, work has been going on at an advanced stage, so much has been going on about the issue of the collapsed building in Kubwa, very sadly, I think over five persons have been rescued so far.
“As we speak now one of the males has been pulled from the rubble. I think he seems to be confirmed dead and has been evacuated to the morgue at the Kubwa General Hospital, it’s a painful one but the search is still going on for the last male some of the persons there said came in to stay there, we are praying that we get one alive hopefully.
The incident which happened around 11:25 pm, on Thursday, was said to have been caused by alterations to the building plan.
It was gathered that the owner of the building converted the second floor into a residential apartment of three and two-bedroom flats respectively while the ground floor was used for shops.
Earlier, Manzo Ezekiel, the spokesperson of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said the agency was alerted about the incident around 1 am this morning and the head of the NEMA Abuja operations office immediately mobilised first responders including the FCT emergency management agency, fire service, Civil Defense (NSCDC) and the Nigerian police to the site.
He confirmed that five persons were rescued, so far, while two other persons were trapped under the rubble.
An eyewitness, who identified himself as Emmanuel Umeke, who lives very close to the scene of the incident, explained that the building collapsed at about 11:25 pm on Thursday night.
He said: “Yesterday night around 11:25 pm, we heard a very heavy noise shake the whole place I thought it was an earthquake, I thought my house was about to break down, I opened my window and sawdust everywhere.
“I came out with my family and saw that the building had collapsed, I told my wife that I was not surprised that the building collapsed, because the building was supposed to be a mall, I started seeing blocks going inside, I went in and saw that they converted the first and second storey to three and two bedroom flats for residential apartments.
“The pillar that I saw there, I knew could not sustain that tiles and blocks that they were taking into the building, I told my wife and neighbour to be careful around the building.”
Another eyewitness, Obus Chibuike, said that they were inside their house which is adjacent to the collapsed building when they heard the loud sound that fell their fence.
“We rushed out on hearing the sound and saw that the building close to us had collapsed and also our fence collapsed too, with some blocks hitting our cars which were parked by the fence.
“We did what we could to rescue people and three people amongst the people that were inside escaped, while we were able to rescue one person from the building this morning,” he narrated.
Meanwhile, the Director of the FCT Department for Development Control, Mukthar Galadima who was at the scene said it occurred some minutes before midnight on Thursday.
According to him, preliminary reports had shown that the building was in a swampy area and that the right materials were not used in the construction.
At the time of filing this report, efforts to reach the owner of the building proved abortive.
