The Red Cross and witnesses reported that at least 21 persons were killed when a school in central Nigeria collapsed on Friday, the majority of them were students doing exams.
A reporter for AFP reported that when the Saint Academy school in the Jos North division of Plateau State collapsed, trapped students screamed for assistance under the debris while distraught parents searched for their kids.
Images taken at the scene showed crowds assembling around a concrete building that had collapsed and mounds of debris, while rescue personnel attempted to reach the victims using heavy machinery.
The Red Cross reported to AFP that “69 injuries and 21 fatalities were all admitted at different hospitals.” Spokesman Nuruddeen Hussain Magaji made this statement.
16 corpses were observed by AFP earlier in two Jos hospital morgues. Everyone had on their school uniforms.
The 15-year-old injured student Wulliya Ibrahim told AFP, with his mother by his hospital bedside: “I entered the class not more than five minutes, when I heard a sound, and the next thing is I found myself here.”
“We are many in the class, we are writing our exams,” he stated.
“Several students” were killed when the two-story Saint Academy building fell, according to earlier reports from the National Emergency Management Agency.
At least eight bodies were visible at the scene, according to Chika Obioha, a local who was reporting to AFP, and numerous injuries were also reported.
“Everyone is helping out to see if we can rescue more people,” stated the man.
According to the AFP journalist, five deceased were brought into the mortuary at the Our Lady of Apostles Hospital in Jos, while eleven bodies were seen in the morgue at the Bingham University Teaching Hospital.
Officials at Our Lady of Apostles Hospital stated that at least 15 students who were saved and hurt were admitted.
The Bingham University Teaching Hospital’s officials remained silent.
Although the cause of the collapse was not immediately known, locals claimed that three days of intense rain were to blame.
“Devastated by the tragic loss of young lives at Saint Academy,” Cristian Munduate, a representative of UNICEF Nigeria, posted on X.
“As the school building collapsed, children filled with hope were finishing their exams. Sincere sympathies to the impacted families.”
In Africa’s most populous country, building disasters are quite prevalent because to low-quality building materials, incompetence, and a lack of enforcement of construction standards.
In the posh Ikoyi neighborhood of Lagos, the capital city of Nigeria, a high-rise structure under construction collapsed in 2021, killing at least 45 people.
The next year, a three-story building in Lagos’ Ebute-Metta neighborhood fell, killing ten people.
An investigation of construction disasters by a South African university has revealed that at least 152 structures in Lagos have collapsed since 2005.
Frequently cited causes include poor construction, inferior materials, and corruption to evade government scrutiny.
