One Body Recovered From Rubble Of Collapsed Banana Island Building

One body has been recovered from the rubble of the collapsed building in the Banana Island area of Lagos State.

The state government had on Thursday said 25 people were rescued from the site, adding that there was no fatality.

However, speaking in a statement on Friday night, the state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, said the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) workers’ “search and recovery efforts unearthed the remains of the adult male hitherto unaccounted for by site supervisors.”

The Commissioner said the excavation of the site, using the architectural designs, continues, adding that the site has been divided into quadrants for a painstaking search and rescue operation.

“Quadrants 2 and 3 have been levelled to ground zero, with the search operation completed. Quadrant 4 is ongoing.

“Twenty-five people were rescued from the site when the building went down on Wednesday. They are all doing fine.

“When a roll call was conducted by the site supervisors, everyone was accounted for. Nobody could ascertain whether the victim, whose body was found this morning, was on the site – as of the time the roll call was taken,” Omotoso said.

THE WHISTLER earlier reported that a renowned Nigerian architect, Dr Olanrewaju Towry-Coker, alleged that the building, which collapsed on Wednesday, was designed by unknown ‘architects’ and ‘engineers’ and being built by ‘unknown’ persons!

According to Lagos State Government, preliminary investigations revealed that the building collapsed as a result of a concrete mixer truck that rammed into some load-bearing columns of the building.

Towry-Coke who visited the site of the collapsed building on Thursday said there was no way the load-bearing columns could support the structure, because they were too narrow in thickness.

He wondered how this could be possible in Lagos Island which, he noted, has been construction hub since the 1800’s.

Meanwhile, the state Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has ordered that all developments in the area be placed on hold.

The directive is subject to a comprehensive audit by the officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA).

This is to determine how many buildings are being constructed without approval from the state government; and “If all approved buildings are being built in line with the approval limits provided”.