NO fewer than 80 people may have lost their lives in building collapses in Lagos State in the last three years.
A survey by Saturday Tribune revealed that the Lagos Island recorded the highest figure from about four reported incidents.
Last Sunday, more than 18 persons were feared dead, following the collapse of a building at the premises of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) in Iddo, Ebute-Metta, though official figures put the death toll at eight.
The tragedy, which followed a downpour, left scores of the residents injured.
About 45 of the victims with fracture were rescued and taken to hospital by a rescue team that comprised men of the Nigerian Red Cross.
The incident of building collapse in the state is usually blamed on greed, incompetence, corruption, substandard materials and disregard for building regulations.
According to the survey, at least 11 people, including children, died when a four-storey residential building caved in, in Idi-Araba, Mushin in March this year.
It also indicated that 28 people were killed in 2006 when a four-storey building collapsed in Lagos. The high death toll was on the account that the building had a restaurant, bar and shops on the ground floor.
The incident was among the four building collapse recorded in the state in the year, two of which included residential buildings in Ebute-Metta that claimed about 37 lives.
The other was the Bank of Industry on Broad Street, Lagos, which two persons died. In November 2007, 10 people were feared dead when a two-storey building collapsed at 10, Okegbogbo Street in Lagos Island.
The area witnessed a similar disaster within a week when two six-storey buildings at Imam Ligali Street, also collapsed following a fire incident that affected two other six-storey buildings. One person lost his life in the incident, while 15 others had various degrees of burns from the inferno which followed after the collapse.
In a frantic move to stem the tide, the state government in 2006 marked 500 houses with defects for demolition.
The Lagos State Physical Planning and Development Authority said the decision was arrived at after a thorough evaluation on the condition of the buildings.
The state government, this year, also ordered the local government chairmen to inspect all buildings in their domains and mark down defective ones for demolition.
The directive came on the heels of the collapse of a four-storey building at 44, Ojerinde Street, Idi-Araba, Mushin, in March 2009.
The Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Mr. Francisco Abosede, had warned that all substandard houses would be demolished as a pre-emptive measure against further building collapse in the state.
He said, “Henceforth, local government chairmen would inspect all buildings within their areas and mark down any of them suspected to have been built with substandard materials for demolition,” he stated.