ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — At least seven people were killed when a building collapsed in a suburb of the Nigerian capital over the weekend, a local official said Monday.
“We stopped the search and rescue operations because we excavated and there was no one left in the rubble,” said Nkechi Isa, a spokesperson for the Abuja city emergency department.
Building collapses are becoming increasingly common in Nigeria, with more than a dozen such incidents in the past two years. Authorities often blame such disasters on the inability to enforce building safety codes and poor maintenance.
The building that collapsed on Saturday, located in Sabon-Lugbe area, had already been partially demolished and its structure was further degraded by scavengers scavenging for scrap metal, according to an Abuja Police statement released on Sunday.
Abuja police spokesperson Josephine Adeh said five people were rescued from the rubble.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, recorded 22 collapsed buildings between January and July this year, according to the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria.
In July, a two-story school collapsed in north-central Nigeria, killing 22 students. Saints Academy college in Busa Buji community of Plateau State collapsed shortly after students, many of whom were 15 years old or younger, arrived for classes.
