Breaking News: Lagos State starts demolition of marked buildings on Lagos Island

Following the recent loss of lives from the collapse of a three story building, Tuesday in Ita Faji, the state government has started pulling down buildings marked for demolition in Lagos Island.

The on-going demolition exercise of some houses on Freeman street in Ita Faji is being carried out by officials of the the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA).

The development comes two days after a three-storey building on Massey Street in the same area, caved in, killing twelve people, including nine children, while 50 were rescued.

During his visit to the area after the collapse, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, said some landlords had been resisting the demolition of defective buildings.

He said this time around, the government was resolved to pull down such structures.

“We have been carrying out a lot of integrity tests on the buildings in this neighbourhood and as you can see, some of them have been marked for demolition but we get resistance from landlords but we must continue to save lives and we would intensify our efforts to see that those have failed our integrity test, we would ensure that they are quickly evacuated and we bring the structures down,” he said.

Also, in a similar visit, Thursday the governor-elect of the state, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who visited some survivors, decried the loss of lives in the incident, which, he said could have been prevented if the owner of the collapsed structure had not flouted the state building codes.

Mr Sanwo-Olu also said, “I am personally terrified that we lost lives in this incident, because it is something that shouldn’t happen. I urge all government agencies that are involved in ensuring standards on buildings to speed up their tasks to prevent a repeat of this tragic incident.

“These agencies should go out and check if there are still buildings across Lagos that are compromised. This is the rightful thing to do now. We should not wait till we see fatalities, such as we witnessed in this incident. Sanctity of building approvals is important and critical to ensuring we prevent this kind of event in the future,” he concluded.

End

Source: Cable