No fewer than two people died on Friday, August 26, 2022, in a building collapse at the Kubwa area of Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
A statement by the FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mentioned the FCT Director-General, Abbas Idriss, as confirming the fatalities.
“Alhaji Idriss explained that the rescue operation at the collapsed site came to an end with five persons rescued alive, three with various degrees of injuries, while two persons were unhurt and discharged from the Kubwa District Hospital.
“Meanwhile, two persons have been confirmed fatally injured and their bodies deposited at the General Hospital, Kubwa.
“Their relatives have been identified and are making arrangements for their burial,” the statement read.
The multi-storey building, housing a shopping mall, collapsed in Kubwa in the early hours.
A joint task force, including officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence (NSCDC), Nigeria Police (NPF), and the FEMA were at the scene to conduct rescue operations.
Idriss appealed to developers to always obey the building code, and warned residents to desist from living in uncompleted buildings.
The Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to the FCT Minister, Ikharo Attah, who was present at the scene, said the owner of the property had attempted to convert the shopping mall into a residential building.
“The building was initially a shopping mall, but the report we got from residents was that the owner was warned and, at a certain point, it was being converted to a residential apartment.
“The down was a shopping mall, but they were putting up some blocks of flat on the first and second suspended floors.
“You cannot alter a shopping mall and convert to a residential building, thereby giving it more load that what it was meant to carry,” Attah said.
He noted that the FCT Minister, Muhammad Bello, had ordered that integrity tests be carried out on buildings around the area.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via [email protected] or @ije_le on Twitter.