No fewer than 400 buildings have been
wrecked, while thousands of residents are
rendered homeless, after a windstorm
ravaged streets in Papa Ashafa/Dopemu in
the Orile-Agege area of Lagos State.
The unfortunate incident happened around
4.30pm on Monday. It was gathered that
cars parked on the roads were damaged as
concrete electric poles fell on them in the
gale that swept through 20 streets.
It was observed that private and public
school buildings in the area were
damaged. According to witnesses, some
pupils of the schools escaped death by a
whisker.
In fact, a church building on OpeOlu Street
was uprooted and dumped on another
building.
Many of the residents were sighted by our
correspondent lamenting their losses and
said they slept on the road with their
children.
Some of the affected streets include Abibatu,
Opeifa, Fabowale, Kushoro, Opeolu, Bakare
Opesha, Sura Ogunmakin, Igbayilola,
Akintunde, Alafia, Sadiku, Ebun, Ayeni,
Oyewole, Adewunmi Adebiyi, Oyewole Close,
Oyewole Road and Alafia Close.
A resident on Opeolu Street, Bridget Isiaka,
said she was feeding her baby when the
incident happened.
She said, “I saw that something was moving
the bed and my baby and I was wondering
what was going on. When I saw the storm, I
shouted for help. The roof was lifted up by
the storm.”
A trader, Mrs. Balogun Labake, told PUNCH
that the windstorm had destroyed all her
property.
“I saw the thing rolling towards us with full
force. It pulled the bed from underneath us.
As we were about running away, the force
blocked us from going out. It destroyed all
our property and damaged the roofing
sheets,” she said.
A resident on Abibatu Street, Mrs. Olayemi
Olawode, said since she arrived in the area
more than 20 years ago, she had never
witnessed such disaster.
Olawode said although many houses on her
street were affected, she was lucky that the
storm only took away a few of her roofing
sheets which she had replaced.
But the same was not true for Mrs. Nike
Olusanaya, a civil servant resident on
Okubanjo Street.
PUNCH on Tuesday saw that the disaster
had rendered the mother of four children
homeless as her single-room apartment was
blown apart.
“We have nowhere to stay again. We have
been carrying our loads around and begging
people to house us. The windstorm threw the
ceiling of our room far away. I slept outside
with my kids,” she said.
Tragedy was averted on Opeolu after an
Assembly of God Church structure atop a
residential building was careened away to
another building opposite it.
A tailor living in the house where the church
was, Mr. Segun Toyin, said, “There were five
of us around that time. My four friends, who
were outside, suddenly ran into the shop and
said there was an earthquake. A few minutes
later, the wind took off the building.”
A lodger in the house where the church
building landed, Ebenezer Omileke, said it
was a hurricane that ravaged the area. He
said the church structure first landed on the
roof of their building, before the storm lifted
it to the store behind the building.
The General Manager of the Lagos State
Emergency Management Agency, Femi Oke-
Osanyintolu, said the state government had
opened a relief camp to temporarily
accommodate some of the residents.
He said, “The governor has directed that the
relief camp at Igando be opened to those that
are displaced. The camp is to provide an
alternative, instead of sleeping outside.”

HMMMM