Barely five days after a high-rise building in Ikoyi axis of Lagos collapsed, the rescue team has recovered four additional bodies under the rubbles, increasing the death toll from 38 to 42.
The four additional bodies were brought out by the rescue team after they intensified search and recovery at the site, to ascertain that no one was left under the rubbles due to no availability of an accurate manifest at the site.
Meanwhile, the state government has discovered six additional survivors that were currently on admission at the Nigerian Police Hospital in Falomo, a few meters away from the building that crumbled in the state.
Confirming the death toll, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, disclosed the statistics on Saturday during a visit to the site to inspect the level of search and recovery undertaken by the rescue team that includes the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and others.
Sanwo-Olu, who stated that the search and rescue team was yet to stop, disclosed that the six additional survivors were rescued by the first responders earlier immediately after the building came down.
Addressing pressmen on Saturday at the collapsed building site, the governor noted that they were discovered after many relatives began to fill the missing person form, which prompted the government to extend the survivor search beyond the site.
Sanwo-Olu stated that the six persons were treated at the Police Hospital in Falomo axis and that the state government has taken up their medical care, to facilitate their speedy recovery.
Among the latest survivors were a 38-year-old woman, Glory Samsom. Others are Ndajor Ahmed, Yunusa Abubaka, Ajiboye Habib, Jeremiah Samson, and one man identified as Emem.
While most of them sustained varying degrees of injury, Samson, 20, is said to be in a coma and efforts were ongoing to ensure his survival after the incident.
He said: “There are additional six people that we’ve also been able to identify and who were on site when the building collapsed. They were taken to the Police Hospital in Falomo for treatment and some of them have been discharged. We have taken the full records of survivors in the incident. And this gives a total of 15 people rescued alive. We have a total of 42 bodies that have been recovered.”
