Many trapped in Kaduna collapsed building

A 3-week old baby girl was pulled out last night from the rubble of a 3-storey building that collapsed and trapped many people including six children in Kaduna yesterday. The building collapsed in the afternoon, hours after a similar incident in Lagos in which at least seven people were killed. trapped in Kaduna could not […]

A 3-week old baby girl was pulled out last night from the rubble of a 3-storey building that collapsed and trapped many people including six children in Kaduna yesterday.

The building collapsed in the afternoon, hours after a similar incident in Lagos in which at least seven people were killed.

trapped in Kaduna could not be confirmed, but residents of the area said the structure comprised four units of 4-bedroom flats, eight units of 2-bedroom flats and four shops.

Seven families live in the building located along Hadeja road near the Kaduna central market, and many of them were believed to be inside when the incident happened.

“Six children are missing; they are trapped in the building. The oldest among them is 13 years old, our rescue workers are still searching,” an official of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Manzo Ezekiel told Daily Trust shortly after 6pm yesterday.

The collapse happened soon after 1pm, and for hours the trapped persons were being heard shouting for help. It took at least two hours for equipment to be mobilised to the place to help in the rescue effort.

Witnesses said the building started collapsing around 1.05pm, and Kaduna state emergency management agency officials arrived there at about 2pm.

Many people were seen crying at the scene because their children were inside the building.

A large crowd besieged the place, and people became apprehensive when rescue officials could not enter the building even as trapped persons were being heard crying for help.

There was a mild drama when five young men ignored the warning of soldiers drafted to the scene and climbed the building trying to rescue the trapped families.

Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero was among those who turned up at the scene, and soon after he left Julius Berger Construction Company’s men brought a crane and began pulling down parts of the building.

By around 6pm, three persons were rescued from the building among them the mother of the 3-day old baby girl.

NEMA media officer Ezekiel said by 6pm the agency’s workers were still searching for the baby as the excavator clears away the rubble.

Sunday Ike who has been doing business in the area for about seven years now confirmed that many people living in the building and that some Muslims normally say their prayers in front of the building. He said that the incident took place few minutes after they said the 1pm prayers.

“I saw my man shouting and saying he just left there less than two minutes before the incident happened. Some children too came back from school and were about entering the building when it began collapsing. Though the building is old and I know that is the problem as you can see cracks everywhere,” he said.

Mohammed Salihu who sells tyres on the ground floor of the collapsed building said he decided to stroll to the shop opposite his own to sleep immediately after the 1pm prayers and then the building started collapsing.

Daily Trust learnt that structure was built in the early 1980s by the late Kaduna business tycoon Alhaji Shittu Adebayo.

Salihu said they were aware that the house is likely to collapse someday because it was built of locally made mud about 25 years ago.

Trader Mohammed Saminu said, “There are people whom we are calling on phone and they are receiving calls under the collapsed building, some answer when you shout their names while some are hitting items. The youths around are willing to rescue the trapped people but they don’t have the training and equipment to do so.”

Six killed in Lagos

Earlier yesterday in Lagos, a building collapsed and killed at least seven people at the Ebute Meta area.

The bodies of a couple, a baby and three others, were pulled out of the three-storey building in the morning.

Several people were believed to be trapped under the rubble while six others including two school children were rescued. Seven of the occupants of the three-storey building sustained varying degrees of injuries.

The building located at No 29b Oloto Street, off Cemetery Road, Ebute Metta, had given the residents distress signs with cracks all over which were ignored, a resident of the area said.

Ibrahim Farinloye, spokesman for NEMA in the South-West, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the agency got information that the building started creaking at about 1.30am and finally gave way at about 2am.

Farinloye confirmed that six people had been brought out dead, while six others were rescued and taken to hospitals with minor injuries.

NAN reports that emergency workers were still combing the debris for whoever might be trapped.

Officials of the Nigerian Police, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Red Cross, NEMA, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), the state Fire Service, as well as youths in the area, were involved in rescue efforts.

A rescued resident of the building, Miss Dalikis Abdulamid, 23, said she was at the balcony of the second floor when the incident happened.

She said that her mother and her four siblings were also rescued, but had been taken to hospital.

According to her, they had been noticing cracks in the walls of their rooms, but that their father used to patch these up with cement.

“We did not know that the building will collapse. By about 2am, when the building came down, some of our co-tenants were trapped, while some were dead,” she said.