At least one person lost his life in the Kubwa building collapse, after a two-storey building shopping mall crumbled late Thursday night.
The incident, which happened around 11: 25pm, was said to have been caused by alterations of the building plan.
Our correspondent gathered that the property owner converted a residential building to a multi purpose building without recourse to the foundation of the building. The second floor was allegedly used for residential apartment with three and two bedroom flats respectively, while the ground floor was used for shops.
Eyewitnesses say four persons were earlier pulled out from the rubble alive, with one person still trapped as rescuers comb through.
“It happened around 11.30pm yesterday. We were seven people sleeping here. One person slept at the boys quarter, another slept in the security post, and then the remaining five slept in the main building. Five of us have been rescued, remaining a security man, and the man that brought me here,” one of the survivors told news men.
Also speaking on the incident, Ikharo Attah, Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to the FCT Minister, said the owner of the property was fore-warned by concerned residents.
“The building was initially a shopping mall, but the report we got from residents was that the owner was warned, and at a certain point, it was now being converted to a residential apartment.
“The down was a shopping mall, but they were putting up some blocks of flat on the first and second suspended floors. You cannot alter a shopping mall and convert to a residential building thereby giving it more load that what it was meant to carry,” he noted.
Attah added that the FCT Minister has ordered that tests be carried out on most of the high rise buildings around the area.
He noted that the combined team of security agencies at the scene are currently trailing the owner of the property, who residents suggested may have absconded.
“We have a policy in the FCTA that when a building collapse, the land is forfeited and revoked and the place is converted into a park or garden for residents around the neighbourhood,” he added.
Coordinator of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, Umar Shaibu, blamed the incident on quackry and shady construction, adding that the FCTA has a policy of subjecting old buildings to integrity test.
Earlier, the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, said it was alerted about the incident around 1:am Friday morning, after which it mobilised First Responders including FCT Emergency Management Agency, Fire Service, Civil Defense, NSCDC, and the Nigerian Police to the site.
Spokesman of the agency, Manzo Ezekiel, said Headquarters team have also been deployed to support the rescue operation.
Manzo said some rescue equipment deployed to the site include excavators, spraders, cutters, etc.