24 people have reportedly escaped death when two separate buildings under construction collapsed in Anambra State, Newspremises understands.

A two-storey building collapsed in Amikwo village, Awka, the state capital in the early hours of Wedneday, July 7 while another two-storey building also collapsed in Oko, Aguata Local Government Area of the state on Tuesday, July 6.

Four persons were reportedly trapped inside the debris in the Oko building but were rescued with injuries, while about 20 persons reportedly escaped death in that of Amikwo.

The Amikwo building reportedly collapsed at about 2 am, falling on part of an occupied nearby two-storey building.

Though no life was lost, building materials worth millions of naira were wasted in the unfortunate incident.

Newspremises gathered that the first floor of the two storey building sank into the ground, while the remaining portion fell and is leaning on a neighbouring two storey building with occupants.

While blaming the collapse to poor mixture and reinforcement, the occupants said that for fear of the unknown, many of them stayed outside till morning.

The Amikwo building has been sealed by officials of the Awka Capital Territory Development Authority (ACTDA).

Managing Director, ACTDA, Ven Amaechi Okwuosa, who confirmed the incidet revealed that the building had been under construction for the past ten years and was marked for demolition in 2018.

“Although the developer had commenced demolition of the building, the right equipment was not used, hence the collapse,” he said.

While appreciating God that there was no casualty, Venerable Okwuosa stressed that there are many such buildings which have being marked by their engineers.

Okwuosa pledged the agency’s commitment to ensuring the structural integrity of buildings done in the state capital territory.

Reacting to the Oko incident, Executive Chairman of Anambra Physical Planning Board, Chike Maduekwe, blamed the incident on a compromise on structural integrity.

He said the structure had since been sealed, while development partners had been invited for questioning.

n3xt:


I’d never blame any contractor, subcontractor, supervisors or builder nor materials for failure on my personal build. I’d take full responsibility for whatever happen in my build knowing that I, the homeowner is the project director.

I pick all the pieces so I should take ownership of whatever happen.

Until we start jailing homeowners whose projects suffered collapse (whether partial of full), we won’t be able to stop this madness in our country.

The speed at which greedy and inexperienced contractors use substandard materials on largely disturbed soil to build unapproved structures in our dear country is very alarming.

Over 90% of homeowners do not have approval for their buildings (it’s a known fact) neither do they bother to invite relevant authorities (especially the sleepy ones COREN, CORBON, NIA etc) for stage certification and material testing.

What exactly is wrong with us?
And we are condemning China that built stackable 10 storey building in 28 hours when we are yet to perfect the construction of ordinary 2 floor building using concrete o

Sigh!