One body has been recovered from the rubble of the collapsed building at 1st Avenue, Banana Island, Ikoyi area of Lagos State, Southwest Nigeria.
Gatekeepers News reports that the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, recovered the body during its search and recovery efforts.
Gatekeepers News earlier reported that the building, which was under construction, collapsed on Wednesday evening, with some workers trapped under the rubble.
Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, in a statement on Friday, said the excavation of the collapsed building was still ongoing.
Omotoso said the identity of the body recovered was yet to be known, adding that everyone in the building had been accounted for.
The Commissioner said, “The excavation of the site, using the architectural designs, continues. The site has been divided into quadrants for a painstaking search and rescue operation. Quadrants 2 and 3 have been leveled to ground zero, with the search operation completed. Quadrant 4 is ongoing.
“Twenty-five people were rescued from the site when the building went down on Wednesday. They are all doing fine.
“When a roll call was done by the site supervisors, everyone was accounted for. Nobody could ascertain whether the victim whose body was found this morning was on the site – as of the time the roll call was taken.”
Meanwhile, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), had earlier said no death was recorded, it later said seven people were rescued from the collapsed building.
The president of the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB), Rotimi Edu, has described the incident as a case of negligence by the contractors who undertook the project.
