JOS (Nigeria), July 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A school in central Nigeria collapsed on Friday, killing several students and trapping others who were heard crying for help under the rubble, a rescue agency and witnesses said.
Mechanical diggers tried to rescue victims while parents desperately looked for their children at the Saint Academy in Jos North district of Plateau State after the building fell in on students taking their exams, witnesses said.
“I entered the class not more than five minutes, when I heard a sound, and the next thing is I found myself here,” Wulliya Ibrahim, one of the injured students said with his mother at his hospital bedside.
“We are many in the class, we are writing our exams.”
The National Emergency Management Agency said the two-storey building housing Saint Academy collapsed killing “several students” without giving details.
“NEMA and other critical stakeholders are presently carrying out Search and Rescue operations,” it said.
Officials did not give a precise toll, but a resident at the scene Chika Obioha said he saw eight bodies at the site and that dozens more had been injured.
“Everyone is helping out to see if we can rescue more people,” he said.
An press correspondent said he saw five dead taken into the mortuary at the Our Lady of Apostles Hospital in Jos.
At least 15 rescued and injured students were admitted, hospital officials said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse but residents said it came after three days of heavy rains in Plateau.
Building collapses are fairly common in Africa’s most populous nation because of lax enforcement of building standards, negligence and use of low-quality materials.
At least 45 people were killed in 2021 when a high-rise building under construction collapsed in the upscale Ikoyi district in Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos.
Ten people were killed when a three-storey building collapsed in the Ebute-Metta area of Lagos the year after.
Since 2005, at least 152 buildings have collapsed in Lagos, according to a South African university researcher investigating construction disasters.
Bad workmanship, low-quality materials and corruption to bypass official oversight are often blamed for Nigerian building disasters. — NNN-AGENCIES
