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Henry Okonkwo
Occupants of the buildings on Freeman Street, Lagos Island which collapsed in the early hours of yesterday are ruing their losses. The tragic incident killed three people, and rendered the survivors homeless.
Sunday Sun gathered that the two houses that collapsed were a three-storey building located on plot 18, while the other was a bungalow next to it.
According to eyewitnesses, the tragic incident occurred when the three-story structure caved-in, and crushed the bungalow said to be on plot 16, killing three persons, including a seven-year-old boy.
Sadly, the collapsed building was among the nearly 300 buildings earlier marked for demolition by the Lagos State government since last year after a building collapsed at Ita-faaji area, killing 20 people, and injuring scores of occupants.
Confirming the incident, the Director-General of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, in a press statement, affirmed that three persons died, while nine others were rescued alive, beneath the rubbles of the two buildings.
“The LASEMA Emergency Response Team, Shark Squad, rescued a total of nine occupants alive and rushed them to hospital, while three fatalities were recorded and handed over to the State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit, (SEHMU), for onward transfer to the morgue.
“The agency’s excavator has been activated to carry out controlled demolition of the building to avert a secondary incident.”
When Sunday Sun visited the scene, residents of the community expressed outrage over the incident, regretting that the calamity could have been averted if the state government was proactive.
