About 11 workers on Monday morning escaped death as a four story building, still under
construction, collapsed in Obosi, Idemili North Local Government Area of
Anambra State, near Onitsha.
THISDAY gathered that the building caved in at
about 7a.m. when the workers were just about getting to the site to resume work
for the day.
A resident of the area, who did not state his name
was over heard telling sympathisers who gathered at the scene of the collapse
that the building was earlier planned to be a two-storey before the owner later
decided to add two floors on it.
The resident said the addition of the floors may
have been responsible for the collapse as the foundation was not meant to carry
such weight.
He also said there were cracks on the building
prior to the introduction of the two additional floors.
Another resident, who gave her name as Obiageli,
described the soil texture of the area as soft and easily washed away by the
rain.
"People hardly build such multi-storey
building here. What is common here is two-storey building. Besides, the
building has been in the rain and sun for years which was enough to weaken the
foundation," she said.
Reacting, the Chairman of the Landlord Associations
in the area, Chief Chuka Chukwudebelu, blamed the collapse on use of
substandard materials.
"We suspect that it may be due to use of
inferior materials. The landlord was not in a hurry in the building, probably
because of inadequate funds.
"His style has been whenever he got money, he
committed it to the building. We really sympathise with him,” he added.
Chukwudebelu said it was not likely that any of the
workers was trapped as they were just arriving when the incident happened. He
regretted that concerned authorities were yet to bring excavators to remove the
debris to confirm if bodies were trapped in the building.
"But I don't think anyone was trapped in it
since the building is still uncompleted and the workers had not come to work by
the time it happened," he said.
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