One week after the collapse of a 21-storey building on Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, in Lagos State, rescue agencies have continued to work round the clock for recovery operation.
It was learnt that responders were already rounding off their operation, even as the death toll hits 44 on Sunday.
The 21-storey building, owned by Fourscore Heights Limited, had crumbled last Monday around 2pm.
The skyscraper had trapped over 50 persons, including the firm’s Managing Director, Femi Osibona; his friend, a United States of America, USA-based Nigerian businessman, Wale Bob-Oseni; his personal assistant, Oyinye Enekwe, and clients.
Others who lost their lives in the tragedy include: a member of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, identified only as Oyindamola; an aluminium fabricator, Kenneth Otu; an engineer and pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, Living Water Parish, Ibafo, Ogun State, Ola Ogunfunwa, among others.
The area had been thronged by family members of victims and sympathisers daily with the hope of seeing their lived ones alive, since the incident happened.
Meanwhile, some families of the victims have lamented that they were not allowed to identify their loved ones.
But the affected families were, however, granted access on Saturday to find their loved ones among the corpses recovered and deposited at the Lagos Mainland Hospital morgue.
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had on Saturday around 6pm, said that 42 bodies had been recovered so far from the rubble, while a source informed on Sunday that two more bodies were recovered from the rubble, which increased the death toll to 44.
The source said that one of the bodies was recovered around 8pm on Saturday, while the other body was recovered around midnight.
He said, “The recovery operation is still ongoing, but should end by Monday morning. The work is about two per cent to completion.”
Meanwhile, the Association of Nigerian Chartered Architects, ANCA, has called for three probe panels to investigate the circumstances leading to the collapse of the skyscraper.
ANCA said that political, technical and judicial probe panels were needed to unravel the circumstances behind the collapse of the building.
Lauding Sanwo-Olu for setting up a probe panel, ANCA advised the government to set up two other panels to get all the needed answers.
In a statement jointly signed by ANCA’s National President and National Secretary, Moyisore Omatsone and Adekoyejo Jolaoso respectively and made available on Sunday, it stressed that the governor had only set up a political probe panel, meant to investigate the political downplay in the construction and collapse of the building.
ANCA reiterated the need for a technical panel, which would involve all personnel in the building construction and property industries,and which should be given enough time to address a myriad of technical issues involved in such a complex tragedy.
