Mothers and
sympathisers wailed bitterly as the three storey building collapsed on some few
months old babies kept in the crèche room of the school.
The building
housed a nursery and primary school. Many people, including teachers,
staff and residents were trapped.
An eye
witness said: “There are trapped infants of months-old whose parents dropped at
the crèche in the OHEN Nursery and Primary School before going to work and
business centres in the morning.”
‘Building showing signs of wear, over 50 years’
Dayo Adeyemi
Residents in
neighbouring buildings disclosed that the three-storey building had been
showing signs of distress before it carved in yesterday.
They said it had
been peeling off with some parts already partially giving way before it
eventually caved in.
According to nearby
residents, the building was over 50 year-old and that owner had not been
carried out a major rehabilitation except painting of the outer part.
For the
rescue and emergency responders such as the officials of the Lagos State
Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, Rapid Respond Squad, RSS, Lagos
Neighbourhood and Safety Corps and other agencies it was a busy and
difficult day as they had hectic time controlling and managing the crowd
at the same time. The developer of the ill-fated building is yet to be
discovered.
Our correspondent
gathered that the ill-fated building, had shops at the ground floor; its first
and second floor housed the primary and nursery schools. The third floor was
used as residential.
For hours, heavy
duty rescue equipment deployed to the scene couldn’t move in due to the
over-chocked nature of buildings on the island, but it was learnt that many
residents had volunteered to rescue the trapped victims.
As at the time of
filing this report, about 45 people had been rescued and rushed to the
General Hospital, while a yet to be ascertained number of trapped victims were
said to have died upon recovery of their bodies from the rubbles.
We heard loud noise moments after pupils
prayed –Eye witness
Muritala Ayinla
An eyewitness, who
wished not to be mentioned, said that the pupils had prayed and sung all
the rhymes, rendition and other exercises in the morning when the world
suddenly turned dark for them.
His words: “The
school is close to our building. They had already settled for the class work, when
all of a sudden, we just a heard loud noise and the entire environment became
dusty. The visibility was zero. Our aged mum 92-year-old was also affected. Part
of the collapsed building fell on Mama. She had also been rushed to the
hospital.”
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