Lagos bans overnight sleeping at construction sites after building collaps£ k!lls five

Lagos bans overnight sleeping at construction sites after building collapse kills five

Following the collapse of a two-storey building that claimed the lives of five construction workers at Arowojobe Estate, in the Maryland area of Lagos State, the General Manager, Lagos State Building Control Agency, Gbolahan Oki, has banned people, particularly labourers from sleeping at construction sites in the state.

Oki gave the directive in a statement signed by the agency’s Director of the Public Affairs Unit, Olaoye Olusegun.

night.”

Another resident of the estate, who gave her name only as Mrs Fatima, said the building gave no prior warnings before it collapsed.

She stated, “There were no prior signs or warnings. If there was, those workers wouldn’t have slept there before the building came down. We were all asleep when we heard the bang from the collapse and people screaming.

“My children and I ran out of our house in terror because you never can tell. I have never experienced this kind of a thing before. No one is sure of where the owner of the building stays, but I know the labourers were from Ibadan because I heard them converse while working.”

A preliminary report issued by the Permanent Secretary of LASEMA, Dr Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, on Thursday morning disclosed that the corpses of five victims were recovered from the rubble.

“Five adult males were recovered dead while four adult males were rescued alive, and one adult male trapped under the rubble was also rescued alive by LASEMA and the Lagos State Fire Service. All the men were site workers. They received pre-hospital care on location before being transported to the hospital,” the statement read.

Addressing journalists at the incident site on Thursday, the Director of Operations at LASEMA, Olatunde Akinsanya, disclosed that the state government would conduct material testing on the building to determine the cause of the collapse.

Akinsanya said, “The initial response effort bore good fruits because we rescued five victims. They were treated, and given first aid and medical treatment before they were transferred to a state hospital in Gbagada.

“Of course, we began the search and rescue operations, and we were able to cut down on the number of casualties. As I speak to you, five adults are dead, and that’s sad. We’re still doing search and rescue to see if other lives are at stake. We switched immediately to ground-zero operations. So far, no one has come forward to say he or she owns the property. We’re appealing to the owner to come forward.”

LABSCA’s General Manager also stated that all buildings under construction in the last seven months must be “re-certified by the building control agency to ascertain their structural stability,” adding that citizens must “comply with building codes and regulations to curb the menace of building collapse in the state and avoid unnecessary loss of lives.”

He added, “I appeal to every property owner and developer in the state whose property was not covered by a valid planning permits plan to regularise them and ascertain the structural stability of their building, especially during this rainy season.”