Five people yesterday escaped death as a storey building under construction collapsed in Jikwoyi, a suburb of Abuja in the Municipal Area Council of the federal capital territory, FCT.
investigations by Nigerian Pilot Saturday, revealed that the building, Mimshack Arena, located at Jikwoyi phase 4, Abuja was hitherto used as a night club, bar and relaxation point. The owner, Mr. Meshack, a senior serving police officer we gathered apparently, with the intention of maximising the available space, decided to raise the building into a storey building without putting in place the necessary structural and engineering tests to ascertain the state of the structure.
Eye witness account said that no death was recorded as at the time of going to press, just as our correspondent witnessed the rescue of five people alive, while three other workers were rescued from the rubbles critically injured.
Giving his own account of the incident, a suya seller, Mallam Iliya Haruna told Nigerian Pilot Saturday, that he personally witnessed the rescue of three people before the arrival of the policemen, men of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, and other rescue officials 30 to 40 minutes after the building collapsed.
Promise Richard, another eye witness, who runs a boutique in the premises said, “It was shortly after he commenced work for the day, around 10:45 am, that he noticed that the engineer suddenly ran out of the site, and I was curious, I didn’t know he saw it coming. Immediately I stepped away from the building, it collapsed trapping several workers in there.
Meanwhile, rescue officials, who were accused by the residents of not responding promptly, admitted that they had some challenges reaching the scene of collapse, due to bad roads, traffic gridlock and proximity of rescue officials to the area.
A Search and Rescue Officer of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, John Diya, who spoke to journalists explained that they were able to rescue people alive.
