Six dead, scores missing after high-rise building collapses in Nigeria’s capital
Rescue workers search for the victims at the site of a collapsed building in Lagos, Nigeria. AFP
At least six people have died in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos after the collapse of a high-rise building that was under construction, the state emergency services chief said on Tuesday.
The building was under construction in Lagos with dozens more feared trapped inside the rubble.
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Building collapses are frequent in Africa's most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials often substandard.
Rescue workers carry a body at the site of a collapsed building in Lagos, Nigeria, on Monday. AP
A yellow excavator pushed away concrete slabs to search though the wreckage of the 21-floor building in Lagos's wealthy Ikoyi residential and business district, AFP correspondents at the scene said.
Rescue officials said many workers were caught inside the building when it crumbled, though they could not confirm the number of people trapped inside.
Ibrahim Farinloye of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said four people had been rescued so far and four bodies recovered from the site.
State official Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu said a search and rescue effort had been launched for survivors of Monday's incident.
"Currently all responders are on the ground as search and rescue is ongoing," Oke-Osanyintolu said, adding that the death toll now stood at six.
An excavator operates at the site of a collapsed building in Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria. Reuters
Wisdom John, 28, a bricklayer, said he escaped with just a few cuts because he had been on the ground floor when the building collapsed into a pile of concrete, its floors sandwiched together.
"There was more than 50 working today and the manager too," he said, sitting in an ambulance getting treated. "We just ran out."
Witnesses say up to 100 people are missing after the luxury residential structure crumbled, trapping workers under a pile of rubble.
Rescue workers used excavators to sift rubble in the glare of floodlights powered by generators as heaps of shattered concrete and twisted metal engulfed the site where the building once stood, as more workers watched.
President Muhammadu Buhari has called for rescue efforts to be stepped up as emergency services, including hospitals, swing into action.
The collapsed building was part of three towers being built by private developer Fourscore Homes, which promised in a client brochure to provide "a stress-free lifestyle, complete with a hotel flair". The cheapest unit was selling for $1.2 million.
