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Fresh facts have emerged from the building collapse that took place Sunday morning at Iddo, behind the Lagos Terminus, killing 11 people and leaving several others injured. BusinessDay gathered at the scene of the incident Monday that the collapsed building was just a disaster waiting to happen. One of the survivors who identified himself as Nura Ali who disclosed this to BusinessDay, explained that before the collapse, the building was so weak that whenever there was a strong wind preceding a heavy rainfall, it would be shaking.
Ali added that the casualty figure was not as high as it would have been because occupants of the building had learnt to move out of the house each time rains threatened, or keep ‘vigil’ in anticipation of the unforeseen.
The survivor, in spite of the wounds and bruises all over his body, gave gratitude to God for saving his life and that of his wife, Binta. He said that they were under the rubble for six hours, 3 am to 9am, following the collapse of the building.
Meanwhile, Lagos State government has blamed the tragedy on the Federal Government, saying that the uncooperative attitude of federal government agencies was the cause of the collapse.
Francisco Abosede, commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development who stated this, explained that the property belonged to the Federal Government whose agencies did not allow the property inspection unit of the ministry access to the building for property inspection.
According to him, “if not for the uncooperative attitude of the Federal Government agencies, our inspection unit would have detected the weakness of the building and pulled it down. That would have averted this tragedy”.
A two-storey building at the Goodies Park of the Lagos Terminus, Iddo, collapsed early Sunday morning, following the heavy downpour of the previous night. The building, which served as a warehouse before, was raised to two floors which, Ali said, housed more than 50 persons.