A 21-storey apartment building under construction in an upmarket area of Nigeria’s largest city Lagos has collapsed, killing at least three people and leaving dozens more missing.
Hakeem Odumosu, the Lagos police commissioner, confirmed the deaths, but said three survivors had been pulled from the rubble in Ikoyi as at Monday evening.
Officials arriving at the scene were confronted by crowds of people venting their anger that rescue efforts started several hours after the collapse.
One of the witnesses Olayemi Bello while speaking to newsmen confirmed that five of his friends were trapped in the building and he had feared the worst.
Also construction worker Eric Tetteh, 41, said construction teams were waiting for an excavator to arrive at the site when the building suddenly crumbled into a heap of debris. he stated that there are more than 100 people still trapped under rubble.
Femi Hamzat, deputy governor of Lagos, was met on his arrival at the site by angry youths who accused authorities of failing to launch immediate rescue efforts.
Some of the Workers who spoke to journalists said the high rise, which collapsed in the Ikoyi area of Lagos Monday, had been under construction for about two years.
The cause of the collapse was not immediately known. Such incidents are relatively common in Lagos, however, because enforcement of building code regulations is weak. Other observers blame shoddy work by private developers eager to meet the demand for housing in the megacity.
