Scores of people were thought to be inside the primary school when the building crumbled during lessons today. It is not yet clear how many children have been rescued, and how many have survived.

Rescue efforts are underway, with video from the scene showing at least one child covered in dust being carried out of the rubble as onlookers cheered.

The three-storey building collapsed in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. Hundreds of people stood in narrow streets and on rooftops of rusted, corrugated metal as a yellow excavator scooped at the ruins.

Sani Datti, a spokesman with Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said officials from the agency and other emergency services were at the site. ‘For now we don’t have any word on casualties as we are still busy with rescue work,’ he said.

Building collapses are all too common in Nigeria, where new construction often goes up without regulatory oversight.

The collapse comes as President Muhammadu Buhari, newly elected to a second term, tries to improve groaning infrastructure in Africa’s most populous nation.

‘Nigeria’s infrastructure is generally less than half the size than in the average sub-Saharan Africa country and only a fraction of that in emerging market economies,’ the International Monetary Fund has noted.

‘The perceived quality of the infrastructure is low.’

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/13/dozens-children-trapped-nigerian-primary-school-collapses-8897014/?ito=cbshare