Banana building collapse: One body recovered, 25 persons rescued

Banana building collapse: One body recovered, 25 persons rescued

 

The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency has recovered one body from the rubble of the collapsed building on 1st Avenue of Banana Island in the Ikoyi area of Lagos.

Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, disclosed this in a statement on Friday.

He said the (LASEMA) workers’ search and recovery efforts led to the unearthing of “the remains of the adult male hitherto unaccounted for by site supervisors”.

He also said the excavation of the site, using the architectural designs, would continue.

The seven-storey building under construction was said to have come down on Wednesday with some workers trapped under the rubble.

The state governor had initially said no casualty was recorded and that seven people rescued from the building site were moved to the hospital for immediate treatment.

“Few who sustained injuries are being treated. There is no fatality. This unfortunate incident happened while casting was being done,” said a statement by Deputy Director of Public Affairs at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mukaila Sanusi.

But in an update on Friday, the commissioner stated, “The site has been divided into quadrants for a painstaking search and rescue operation. Quadrants 2 and 3 have been levelled to ground zero, with the search operation completed. Quadrant 4 is ongoing.

“Twenty-five people were rescued from the site when the building went down on Wednesday. They are all doing fine.

“When a roll call was conducted by the site supervisors, everyone was accounted for. Nobody could ascertain whether the victim, whose body was found this morning, was on the site – as of the time the roll call was taken.”

Meanwhile, two high-rise buildings around the collapsed structure may have been affected and could be pulled down, according to a source at the state Ministry of Physical Planning.

Already, the state government had ordered suspension of all development projects in the highbrow area while an investigation is being carried out with an assessment of other buildings especially those under construction.