Premium Times
Evidence proved that all victims of the 21-storey building collapse on Gerard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, died before rescue operations began, an official said on Thursday.
The Director-General of Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Oluwafemi Oke-Osayintolu, made the disclosure during a coroner’s inquest into the November 1, 2021 building collapse which killed 46 people.
PREMIUM TIMES recalls how the building on Gerrard Road in the Ikoyi area of Lagos led to fatalities.
One of the survivors had said they were working on a cracked pillar on the first floor of the skyscraper when it crumbled.
The survivor, a labourer at the site, was interviewed in one of the hospitals where he was recuperating then.
”I was working with my colleague. I have been told not to tell anybody. That day, we were working on the first floor, Engineer Kola and Engineer Ola told us there is one pillar on the first floor, the pillar was cracked, the engineers told us to break the pillar so that they could fix another pillar there because the pillar is really big they have confidence that nothing would happen to the pillar if they set another one,” he said.
“Suddenly we heard a noise, the thing (pillar) started to shake, I and Monday (another labourer) ran when we saw that the pillar was starting to shake. When I was running, I fell down I was struggling to come out.”
He said he managed to move out of the building and a gateman helped him onto a motorcycle that took him to the hospital before the arrival of the government’s emergency responders.
PREMIUM TIMES also reported how Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, gave the names of survivors in the tragedy and set up a panel to ascertain the cause of the collapse.
