Collapsed building
A three-storey building collapsed at the early hours of Saturday in Enugu after a heavy downpour.
The house, located at No 16 Nnobi Street, Uwani Enugu, in Enugu South Local Government Area, contains a penthouse.
DailyPost correspondent who visited the site, which is few metres away from the private residence of Governor Sullivan Chime of the state, gathered that the building was completed two years ago.
However, no casualty was recorded as it was yet to be occupied.
As early as 10 a.m, officials from the state ministry of land were already clearing the rubbles with bulldozer.
Some of the witnesses said that they heard a heavy sound as well as people shouting at the early hours of the morning.
One of the witnesses, Mr Chukwuebuka Okonkwo, said that when he heard the bang around 5.30 a.m., he ran out with the members of his family.
“When I heard the sound and people shouting, I thought that it was a bomb blast and I asked members of my family to run for safety.
“When I came out I saw that it was the uncompleted building near my house that was collapsing,’’ he said.
Another witness, Miss Kanayo Enemkpali, said she was shocked that a building nearing completion could collapse in such a manner.
Enemkpali thanked God that no life was lost in the incident.
A family source who spoke on the incident said foul play could not be ruled out as government authorities had allegedly threatened to demolish some part of the building in recent times.
“The commissioner for lands, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ujam visited this place recently demanding that some portion be demolished for car park.
“Not long after that visit, the building collapsed, so as far as we are concerned, we suspect foul play”, he alleged.
He insisted that apart from having a Certificate of Occupancy, approval was equally given by relevant agencies before construction work commenced in the building.
However, reacting to the development, the commissioner for land who was at the site faulted the claims from owners of the building.
According to Ujam, “I don’t see a situation where an approval will be given and the structure would collapse unless an act of God; this is just a clear example of where approval wasn’t given and therefore we are vindicated for the reasons why we didn’t give approvals and you have seen that the building has now come down naturally.
“If you look around, there is a design for the area; it exceeded the number of floors for this particular neighbourhood; there are master plans in place and this clearly exceeded that provision.
“The number of floors in the first instance was exceeded because before they started, they brought drawings and even drawings were not approved. The plan for this area is three floors maximum but they decided to do four floors and a pent house. And you can imagine, building four floors in such a neighbourhood, there was no provision for parking and no consideration of the neighbors.
“At that height, you are already blocking sunlight to the neighbouring properties.
“There were notices served on the owners severally and they even came to my office pleading but I refused and clandestinely they continued with the building because during the day they won’t do anything but at night they start the construction”.
The commissioner said the integrity of the structure was in doubt, adding “it is possible that shoddy materials were used on the onset but then there is a natural alignment in building a house to the size of land that it sits on; clearly something has gone amiss”.
“Obviously in matters like this, a full scale investigation would be carried out; a panel will be set up; that will be done immediately; as you can see, senior officials of government are here and have taken a serious view of what is going on; we also hope that this will serve as a deterrent to others. We thank God there is no loss of lives”, he noted.
Also speaking, the Commissioner for Enugu Capital Territory Development, Mr Ikechukwu Ugwuegede, said that government would commence full investigations into the incident.
He said the investigation would unravel if professionals and standard materials were used in the project.
“We will identify all the people involved including the owner, the contractor and architect in the investigation because from all indication, it is a clear case of structural defect,’’ he said.
Ugwuegde said that his officers had not seen the owner of the building as all efforts to reach him failed.
A construction company, Arab Contractors, and the state Fire Service were also on ground to remove the debris.
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