A total of 10 bodies have been recovered and nine victims rescued from the 21-storey building that collapsed on Gerald Road Ikoyi, Lagos.
The coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in the South-West Region, Ibrahim Farinloye, said rescue work was stalled in the early hours of today due to heavy down pour.
Earlier, Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat, said the building had been sealed for four months.
Hamzat, who paid a visit to the scene of the incident this morning, said it was shut down from July to November.
He also stated that two more survivors have been rescued while the remains of 10 people have recovered from the rubble of the collapsed building.
According to him, “This is now a search and rescue operation and our mission is to get people out of here. This morning we took out two people and they are doing well in the hospital. Totally we’ve taken nine people out and they are in the hospital and some have been discharged and we’ve sadly taken out 10 dead bodies
“The operation as you can see is going on and we will not leave until we are able to account for everybody. We are responsible for the people of the state, our focus is on saving lives.
“As a matter of fact, this place was sealed for about four months sometime last year from July to November because our agency came in to do structural test and saw some anomalies and shut it down and said those things should be corrected.
“The other two buildings will also be audited in terms of integrity test and of course if we see anything, appropriate actions will be taken. They were making corrective actions when this happened. At the time this happened, they were not really constructing but investigations later will show what really happened.
“This particular building that collapsed was approved for 21 floors three years ago not 15 floors, it’s the construction that failed apparently.”
