LAGOS (Reuters) – A high-rise building under construction in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos collapsed on Monday, trapping several workers under a pile of concrete rubble, witnesses said.
Two workers at the site in the affluent neighbourhood of Ikoyi, where many blocks of flats are under construction, told Reuters that possibly 100 people were at work when the building came crashing down.
Building collapses are frequent in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials are often substandard.
There was a pile of rubble where the building once stood while several workers stood by. It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse.
The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency said it had activated its emergency response plan.
“All first responders are at the scene while the heavy duty equipment and life detection equipment have been dispatched,” the agency said in a statement.
(Reporting by Nneka Chile and Tife Owolabi in Yenagoa, writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe, editing by Nick Macfie)
