Anambra Building Collapse: 2 Die, 2 Others Sustain Injuries, Poly Debunks Report

Two people have died and two others seriously injured in last Sunday’s three-storey building collapse in Oko community in Orumba-North local government area of Anambra State.

A resident of the area who spoke to LEADERSHIP said that though majority of the building are occupied by students of the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, some non-students also live in the building.

He said that among the two persons who died in the collapsed building was a female student, while the second person was believed to be the boyfriend of the dead student.

But in a statement issued by the institution’s spokesperson, Dr Oguegbu Celestine Udoka, the polytechnic clarified that the building, located in Amaokpala, was a privately owned lodge and not part of the school’s facilities.

Udoka admitted that the building accommodated both students and non-students, adding that no student of the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, had been confirmed dead in the incident.

“No student of the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, has been confirmed dead. The two persons believed to be trapped in the rubble are reportedly not students of the institution,” he said.

However, thehe resident claimed that the two injured occupants were rescued by some agile youths in the area who rushed to the scene and lifted them out of the rubble.

He said that what prevented many casualties in the sad incident was that most of the students living in the building had gone home on holiday.

He said that it was a food vendor who rented the entire ground floor of the building that raised the alarm at about 10.35 pm on Sunday, when she started hearing the heavy sound of the building’s wall cracking. She has now posted a distress alert in the tenants’ WhatsApp group.

“Immediately, some of the tenants read the distress alert on their WhatsApp platform, and they started packing up their belongings.

“There was even one man who was not in the house then, but, immediately he read the alert, he rushed and evacuated his family members, and some of his properties.

“That lady who died was in her room when the building started collapsing. She ran out and called her boyfriend to help her pack, but while they were packing, the building collapsed, so they could not come out. They are the two people that we know who died. The other two people who were rushed to the hospital were rescued by a group of strong boys who rushed to the building when it collapsed, and succeeded in bringing them out.

“When I went to the place (scene of the collapsed building) at about 12noon (Monday), an excavator operator was there trying to remove the structure that collapsed. The police, Agunechemba security people, NEMA people and fire service people were all there trying to find out if some people were still trapped, “the resident who narrated the sad incident told LEADERSHIP further on phone.

The resident further stated that it was about two years ago that cracks began to develop in the walls of the three-storey building.

He said that, following the danger signs, the building’s owner, who he said lives  overseas, instructed the caretaker to direct all the tenants to pack out. The owner was said to have stopped collecting rent from the building since then.

The source, however, said that the caretaker had since allowed tenants to continue living in the building, after which the food vendor rented the entire ground floor, while the other occupants lived upstairs.