Their mother identified simply as Iya Coker was injured.
Three out of the six flats on one of the two wings of the building completely collapsed at about 12:05am.
It was learnt that the deceased and their mother lived on the first floor.
Toyin,
was a 30-year-old medical doctor, while Bukky recently finished her
national youth service. Both sisters were graduates of the University of
Lagos.
One of the survivors, Ahmadu Omoniyi,
who lived on the ground floor of the building said he informed Mrs.
Coker of the impending danger at about 11.40pm on Tuesday night when he
heard the building cracking.
He said, “When I got home on Tuesday
evening, I observed that sand and stone were falling off from the walls
and the decking. I informed the caretaker immediately. I moved into the
apartment in September.
“Around 11pm, I suddenly woke up feeling
uneasy. I roused the other two people staying with me and asked them
to start packing vital things while I went to Mrs. Coker’s place to draw
her attention to the situation.
“When I got to her floor, she answered
me from inside saying, ‘God will see us through till tomorrow’. Nobody
stayed on the second floor, so, I joined my other flat mates downstairs.
“To my utmost surprise as soon as we
removed our vitals documents from our apartment and moved like three
steps away, the building collapsed. It was God that saved us because the
whole place went down.”
A resident of the area, Opeyemi Fagun, said the sound of the collapsed building drew neighbours’ attention to the scene.
He said despite starting the emergency
operation started the incident happened, Coker could not be rescued
until after about four hours.
He said, “We heard the woman saying,
‘please help, please help’ but we couldn’t locate her on time because of
the amount of debris that had fallen all over the place.
“We finally located her at about 4am
where a wooden cupboard had fallen over the lower part of her body on
the bed she slept. Meanwhile, the cupboard prevented the hard core
debris from falling on her.”
It was learnt that calls placed by residents to the number of her two daughters after their mother had been rescued rang out.
Fagun explained that Coker could not
also give a comprehensive account of the number of people in her
apartment as she seemed to be in shock at the time she was being taken
to hospital.
Fagun said, “We kept on searching the
debris. We later sighted a leg, which turned out to be that of Bukky
under the debris. Toyin’s corpse, which was also buried under the debris
was also sighted.
“Both of them were found dead under the
debris. We concluded the search and rescue at about 5am after Toyin’s
body was recovered. Government emergency officials later started coming
around some minutes to six blaring sirens all over the place.”
General Manager of the Lagos State
Emergency Management Agency, Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, said the bodies
of the sisters had been taken to the morgue.
When one of our correspondents visited
the scene, oficials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency were seen
marking the buildings on the M Zone of the estate for demolition.
Survivors of the incident told one of
our correspondents that emergency officials, who were alerted to the
impending disaster did not come.
A resident, Daramola Victor, told one of
our correspondents that about 11.40pm, it was noticed that the walls
were about to give way.
He said, “I live in the second wing. But
we noticed that the other wing was cracking and we called the National
Emergency Management Agency, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency and
fire service on the phone. Only the Red Cross came later after the
collapse.
“All these agencies are here now acting
as if they are doing something useful. They could have saved lives if
they came when we called on them.”
He said when he noticed that one of the
wings of the building had collapsed, he rushed back into his apartment
and evacuated his family.
“I really don’t know where to go now.
All our properties are outside. Neither LASEMA nor NEMA is giving us any
assistance in this direction,” he said.
Residents of the buildings at the site
that have now been tagged “distressed” and sealed by the Lagos State
Building Control Agency, said no effort was made in the past by
government officials to test the state of the buildings in the estate.
Earlier, the Commissioner for Housing,
Mr. Bosun Jeje, who was at the site briefly, had said the buildings were
“inspected frequently by our engineers.”
He said, “This is a responsible
government, whenever anything like this happens government always
ensures that those who are affected are taken care of.
“Government will offset the medical
bills of victims who are receiving treatment in the hospital. As you can
see, the buildings have been marked for demolition because they are
weak.”
Managing Director, Lagos State Property
Development Corporation, Biodun Oki, also said the residents had been
given notice to quit the buildings prior to the collapse.
“The markings of the distressed buildings had been before now and even some of them moved out before now,” Oki said.
But residents said the buildings were
marked for demolition immediately after Wednesday’s incident. They
claimed there was no prior warning from government agencies.
One of our correspondents noticed
officials of the LASBCA marking the buildings on the M Zone of the
estate at about 9am on Wednesday.
An angry resident, who pleaded anonymity
said, “If anybody tells you that they had inspected these buildings
before, they are only lying. We had called on the government at
different times to compel the owners of the buildings to renovate them
but they did not take any step.
“I did the renovation of my own
apartment when I moved in. I would have packed out of the apartment if
not because I am financially handicapped.
“If government had inspected the houses
and said they were “distressed” we would have packed out without
complaint. They don’t care about us.”
Another resident, Ibrahim Ade, who
corroborated this, said he was angry when he saw government officials
sealing other buildings on Wednesday.
He said the inefficiency of government cost the two sisters their lives.
“Go to all the buildings, you will see
that they are not in good condition, but government refused to do what
was necessary until people died,” he said.
President of the residents’ association,
Abiodun Taiwo, also berated the officials for their insensitive
attitude to the state of the buildings in the estate.-punch
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