Building Collapsed: Lagos State Government Begins Demolition Of Marked Buildings

The manual demolition of buildings marked on Freeman street at the Ita Faji area of Lagos Island has commenced, the Lagos State Government has revealed.

This comes after the collapse of a three-storey building on Massey street in the same area, which caved-in on March 13, killing about nine people, while about 50 were rescued.

Akinwunmi Ambode, the governor of the state had during an assessment tour to the site, vowed to demolish all illegal school buildings in the area. He made the pledge on Wednesday while responding to concerns raised by some residents on the increase in illegal schools when he visited the scene of a building collapse.

“So far, from what I have been briefed, we have rescued about 25 people and some are already dead but we were earlier informed that it was a school, the building is not technically a school, it is a residential building that was actually accommodating an illegal school so to speak on the second floor.

“Like we have said, we have been carrying out a lot of integrity tests on the buildings in this neighborhood and as you can see, some of them have been marked for demolition but we get resistance from landlords but we must continue to save lives and we would intensify our efforts to see that those have failed our integrity test, we would ensure that they are quickly evacuated and we bring the structures down,” he said.

Report has it that 24 hours after the incident occurred, the rescue agencies say they have reached ‘ground zero’ on the site, meaning that all the rubbles had been excavated and there was no evidence that anyone was still trapped.