At least seven persons have been rescued from the rubble of a seven-story building under construction that collapsed on Wednesday on First Avenue, in the Banana Island area of Ikoyi, Lagos State.

Emergency responders who rushed to the scene for the rescue mission were reportedly still looking for a casualty who had been buried under the debris of the fallen structure as of the time this report was filed.

According to PUNCH Metro, the construction workers were performing their daily tasks in the building that had been under construction for several months when it suddenly caved in around 4.58pm.

It was gathered that while some of the workers at the site escaped unhurt with some sustaining injuries of varying degrees, some other workers were not so fortunate to make it out on time and got caught under the rubble of the collapsed structure

Some witnesses, including construction workers of adjoining buildings within the premises, raised the alarm and alerted the appropriate emergency agencies, who were quickly mobilised to the scene to begin rescue operations, in an effort to free the trapped victims.

Reacting, the pioneer President of the Building Collapse Prevention Guild, Kunle Awobodu, said the guild had begun its own investigation to identify the cause of the collapse.

He said, “Banana Island has a very high value when it comes to property development in the whole of Nigeria. It is a place where nobody anticipated substandard construction or envisaged substandard construction. This is the climax of the building collapse embarrassment, because of that peculiar location. That is our concern.”

Speaking as well on the development, Philips Ayotunde, the Treasurer for Nigerian Institute of Builders, Lagos State, attributed the continuous episodes of building collapse to lack of government oversight.

Philips said, “The government is not ready to do the right thing. If you say a building does not have approval, and yet, you see them commence work. They get to the first, second, third, fourth, all the way to the seventh floor, for heaven’s sake, a seven-storey building will not grow overnight. They have LASBCA officials in every district. What are the officials in that place doing?
“The government cannot exonerate themselves. Where were they when the building was under construction? It is a national shame. I have been getting messages from outside the country for the past hour. This is Banana Island we are talking about. Investors will lose confidence. Both local and international investors will begin to shy away from our real estate sector.”

On January 19, at around 6.45 p.m., a storey building at No. 12 Aromire Avenue, across from Dominos Pizza, in Ikeja, suddenly collapsed, killing one person.
In the last ten years, Lagos State has seen an astounding 115 building collapses, according to records obtained from the Building Collapse Prevention Guild. In 2022 alone, the state recorded 20 incidents of building collapse.