There was a deafening noise. And then the two four-storey shopping plaza under construction in Jabi, Utako district of Abuja, were mere rubbles.
By last night, two persons had been confirmed dead, but eye witnesses said more people might have died in the rubble.
Ten others were injured and taken to the hospital, while at least 50 people remained trapped under the buildings located on P. O. W Mafemi Street, off Solomon Lar Way, Jabi.
Sources said last night that the figure of those trapped could be higher as rescue workers battled into the night to save lives.
Among those trapped were workers, including the site engineer, working in the building when it caved in.
Eyewitnesses said the workers were casting the top floor of the plaza when the buildings gave way.
Rescuers dug a tunnel to get to the trapped people but they were being hampered by the absence of sniffer dogs and the large army of sympathisers as the place was not cordoned off.
Tools such as wheel barrows, shovels and others littered the entire place.
The plaza is said to be owned by an ex-governor in one of the South-south states.
Heavy duty cranes from Dantata & Sawoe were the first to arrive the scene to begin search and rescue operations about 45 minutes after the buildings collapsed.
They were later joined by Julius Berger workers.
All rescue agencies including National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Federal Road Safety Corps, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Red Cross, Critical Rescue International, Fire Service, Police and VIO were all on ground working on both sides of the buildings.
Officials from the Civil Defence Corps came to the crash site with an ambulance and other equipment.
They worked swiftly to rescue the first casualty of the day, a middle- aged woman, who sold wares to the labourers on site.
The rescuers were meticulously removing the debris in the search for the trapped people.
Narrating how the buildings collapsed, a member of staff of the Digital Bridge Institute facing the collapsed buildings told THISDAY that around 3.15 pm, she heard a deafening noise and that on further enquiries discovered that two of the buildings directly facing her office had collapsed.
However, another eyewitness, Aisha Mohammed, who lives adjacent the collapsed buildings said the buildings started rocking imperceptibly two days before its collapse.
An official of the corps, Agbo Joseph, expressed shock at the situation but promised that men and women of the corps would work hard to rescue the victims.
The corps, which obviously lacked adequate equipment for rescue, resorted to using bare hands to dig out the rubbles to rescue victims.
The buildings, according to the labourers on site, were constructed with inferior materials.
THISDAY observed that even those buildings still standing looked rickety as the pillars on which the foundations rested appeared not to have been well reinforced.
The use of the heavy duty crane belonging to Dantata & Sawoe for removal of debris had to be discontinued because it posed risk to the building standing to the immediate right of one of the collapsed structures.
In anticipation that rescue may last all night long, the construction firms helping out had provided flood lights, while adequate security had been provided by security agencies.
Among first callers at the site were the Inspector-General of Police Mike Okiro and Corps Marshall of the Federal Road Safety Commission Osita Chidoka.
The situation created a traffic jam in the Utako district of the FCT as police and Road Safety officials diverted traffic to make way for easy passage of the rescue teams.
But that did not stop thousands of sympathisers who besieged the site.
A visibly shaken FCT Minister Aliyu Modibbo while commiserating with the victims said the owner of the buildings would be arrested and prosecuted accordingly.
�This goes to emphasise the point that we have been making: obeying constituted regulation. We are right now looking for the owner of this building to immediately arrest him and begin prosecution. We will investigate where the fault lies,� he said.
Jul302008