A trapped victim at the site of a collapsed building on Gimbiya Street, Area 11, Garki, Abuja. Photo by Abayomi Adeshida

By Kingsley Omonobi, Inalegwu Shaibu, George Onah & Victor Jacob
ABUJA—IT was a day of horror in Abuja and Lagos, Wednesday. Also, tragedy struck last Sunday when a woman faced a midday horror, with her four children drowned when the boat they were travelling in capsized along the Opobo/Kono waterways.
Six accidents occurring in sequence in Abuja and Lagos claimed 15 lives. At press time, the fate of 10 persons still hung in the balance as they remained trapped under a three-storey building that collapsed in Abuja.

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No fewer than nine persons including a pregnant woman died when the uncompleted building located on Ikole Street, Area 11, FCT crumbled at about 4.30 a.m.

Police Force Public Relations officer, ACP Emmanuel Ojukwu, however, putthe figures, at 11 persons rescued alive and six corpses recovered.

Abuja building collapse

Vanguard gathered that before the building collapsed, there were about 35 occupants who took refuge in the building because their former abodes were either demolished or they could not meet up with the exorbitant rent in the FCT hence they saw the uncompleted building as a last resort.

Luck was on the side of about 10 of the occupants, who according to eyewitnesses, had already got prepared and went out of the building to their different places of work before the building crashed.

Operatives of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA; Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC; Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC and the Red Cross made frantic efforts to rescue the about 10 persons trapped in the rubble after rescuing 11 persons.

The FCT Minister, Sen. Bala Mohammed, who visited the scene, told newsmen that the developer of the property would be prosecuted for non-compliance with rules and regulations.

He noted with regret that the incident was the third since he assumed office and said the FCT Administration would liaise with relevant regulatory agencies in the building industry to come up with institutional framework to check the recurring menace of building collapse.

“We are going to liaise with the Architects’ Registration Council and Nigerian Society of Engineers to see how we can come up with some institutional frame work to stop the menace,” he added..

Mr Yahaya Yusuf, Director, FCT Department of Development Control, had earlier accused the developer of breaching the law by adding another floor to the three-storey building approved for him.

“We served him relevant notices and removed that extra floor. We had to conduct the “Schmidt Hammer Test” to determine the integrity of the building, and it came out negative,” he said.

Yusuf explained that the department had six weeks ago, asked the occupants of the building to vacate the premises, while it sought for legal backing to demolish it, adding it was a matter for regret that the building was still being occupied at the time it collapsed.

A survivor, Mustapha Ali, said he woke up at about 4 a.m. and went outside the building to pray and eat in preparation for the Ramadan.

He said he attempted to wake up his friends who were asleep when the building began crumbling gradually, but regretted that his efforts were not fruitful.

Dr Frank Alu, Chief Medical Director, Maitama General Hospital, Abuja, where some of the victims were rushed to, said six people were brought to the hospital.

He said one person was confirmed dead on arrival, while another, a woman, died while receiving treatment.
She had, while receiving treatment, told officials that her son and a brother were among those trapped in the building.

Dr Osisanya Kehinde, a Consultant Surgeon in charge of Accident and Emergecy Department, said four people had been treated and discharged.

Truck kills 3, crushes 17 cars at Nyanya, FCT

Six hours later, in the same city, a truck loaded with cement lost control on the ever-busy Power House Junction  after AYA flyover in Asokoro District, Abuja,  and killed three persons, crushed 13 cars and injured many others.

The accident happened at about 10 a.m.

Eye witnesses blamed the accident involving the unmarked truck on the recklessness of the driver. According to them, the driver descended the flyover from AYA, rammed into cars at the junction awaiting the traffic signals and began arguing and fighting with others.

It took a combined team of FRSC, Police, VIO, soldiers and good-spirited Nigerians to control the tragedy as they all went to work rescuing victims of the accident and even those trapped under the carnage, before rushing them to hospital.

A woman trapped under the truck for over one hour was lucky to be rescued alive as people at the scene offloaded the cement to allow VIO truck lifter  raise the truck thus paving the way for the car to be pulled from beneath the truck.

As the car was being pulled out, the woman was heard wailing and pleading to be saved. While many victims were seen in their pool of blood, with some lying almost lifeless.

Two die in Lagos

In Lagos, two persons lost their lives in different auto crashes involving an unidentified middle-aged man, who fell off a fast moving vehicle at Breweries Bus Stop, and one Blessing Okon, who was run over by a truck at Berger Bus Stop, along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

An eyewitness, Mike Oludayo, told Vanguard that the unidentified man, who was a passenger in a commercial Mercedes Benz truck popularly known as Molue with number plate No.AA651 SLK, met his end when the vehicle which was being driven  at  a high speed, lost control and threw out  the unidentified passenger who was hanging at the door, and he died on the spot.

Also, Mr.  Okon was run over by a truck marked XX 230KJA and  was being driven by one  Onyekachi Dominic, who is currently being detained at Isheri Police Station for manslaughter, as he reportedly smashed his victim from behind while she was waiting to catch a bus at Berger Bus stop.

The Lagos State Police Command spokesman, Mr Frank Mba, confirmed the report and warned drivers and road users to be more careful.

Woman loses four children in P-Harcourt

The harvest of deaths started in Port Harcourt, last Sunday when a woman faced a midday horror. Her four children were drowned when the boat they were travelling in capsized along the Opobo/Kono waterways.

The woman swam to safety without being able to save any of the children.

Vanguard learnt that the death of the children brings to five the number of kids the same woman would be losing through drowning. The drowned kids were said to be travelling from Epellema Community in Opobo/Nkoro Council to Port Harcourt on holiday.

Two other men who boarded the boat at Opobo as it sailed from Epellema also got lost in the sea, bringing to six the number of persons who lost their lives, last Sunday, in that single tragedy, which sent Opobo Town into deep mourning.

It was also learnt that the boat had almost arrived its destination at Kono waterside but that the boat suddenly plunged into the river while negotiating the harrowing Kono creeks overlooking the berthing point.

The bodies of the children and the men have since been recovered just as the leadership of the local government harped on the need for use of life-jackets by seafarers and repeated its earlier instructions that  boats should not ply the waterways when visibility is poor.