Tragedy struck in the Fadeyi area of Lagos State on Friday when a two-storey building under construction collapsed, killing one person and trapping several others.
The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, confirmed the incident in a statement issued by its Permanent Secretary, Dr Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, on Friday.
According to Oke-Osanyintolu, the building collapsed in the early hours of Friday, noting that rescue teams were working to establish whether more people remained trapped beneath the debris.
Oke-Osanyintolu said LASEMA received a distress call about the incident at 12:10 a.m., prompting the immediate activation of its Cobra Response Team from the agency’s Onipanu Base.
LASEMA Permanent Secretary further stated that the response team arrived at the scene two minutes later, at 12:12 a.m., and discovered that the two-storey structure, which was still under construction, had collapsed.
He reiterated that the team subsequently commenced search and rescue operations after preliminary observations indicated that construction workers might have been trapped beneath the wreckage.
According to him, emergency responders immediately began efforts to locate and evacuate victims while implementing safety measures to protect both the trapped persons and personnel involved in the rescue operation.
BREAKING: One dead, several feared trapped as building collapses in Lagos