Olayiwola Matthew
Some residents of Cole Street in the Oyingbo area of Lagos State, where a two-storey building collapsed, leaving one person dead and 26 others injured, have said occupants of the structure ignored visible distress signs before the incident.
According to The Punch, emergency responders, including officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency, the Red Cross, and the Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps, were on Monday seen carrying out rescue operations amid piles of debris. Crates of beer, motorcycles, and other goods were destroyed in the collapse.
A trader in the building, Mrs Adaeze, said the government had repeatedly warned residents to vacate the property, but the owner allegedly refused to cooperate.
“I was called in the middle of the night that the building had collapsed, and I rushed down here,” she said.
“My goods worth millions of naira are trapped under the rubble. The government had warned us to leave because the building was distressed, but the owner wasn’t cooperating.”
She appealed for government assistance to cushion the losses.
Another resident, Habeeb Jamiu, said the building collapsed shortly after a midnight rainfall.
According to him, residents had noticed cracks on the walls but continued to live there.
“I was awake around 1 a.m. when the building went down,” he recalled.
“We heard cries for help and began rescuing people before emergency responders arrived. The cracks were visible; everyone saw them.”
Another eyewitness, Hakeem Ibrahim, corroborated that the building had shown clear signs of weakness before the tragedy. He expressed fears that more people could still be trapped under the rubble.
“I saw ambulances and police vehicles rushing into the area and followed them. When I got here, residents were already trying to rescue victims before officials came,” he said.
At the hospital where some of the injured were taken, medical staff revealed that the victims were not yet fit to speak with journalists.
The Controller-General of the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, Margaret Adeseye, confirmed in an update that one person had died while 26 others were rescued alive.
She added that the structure had earlier been marked as distressed.
“It is an ongoing rescue involving a two-storey building that had reportedly been marked as distressed before collapsing on the occupants,” she said.
Monday’s tragedy adds to a series of building collapses recorded across Lagos in 2025.
On September 25, six people were rescued after a two-storey building collapsed on Modupeola Street, Mangoro, in Alimosho Local Government Area.
Similarly, on September 16, two construction workers were pulled out alive from a collapsed building in Ebute Metta.
The recurring incidents have continued to raise concerns over compliance with building regulations and enforcement of safety standards in Lagos State.