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| A section of collapsed building used by SCOAN as lodging for church guests. Rescue operations not yet concluded. FILE Photo |
Six
days after a five-storey building used as guest house by the Synagogue Church
of All Nations, SCOAN collapsed, killing scores of persons and injuring several
others, the church was yet to produce names of lodgers in the building.
Vanguard reports that although
the South African government had Tuesday claimed that 67 of its citizens
perished in the collapsed building but rescue operators are faced with the
challenge of identifying the nationalities of the dead and survivors, owing to
what they alleged as reluctance from SCOAN to produce the names.
Besides,
indication emerged that some countries, among which is Australia, have been
calling in to ascertain the plight of their citizens feared might be victims.
Death
toll now 80.
This
is as the death toll rose to 80 yesterday with the recovery of additional 17
victims comprising 12 women and five men, with the number of survivors
still 131.
Fielding
questions from newsmen on the contradiction in the number of death between
rescue operators and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, the South
West spokesperson for the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA Ibrahim
Farinloye, maintained that as at Tuesday, when Zuma came up with his figure,
the death toll was 63.
Farinloye
said, “I don’t know where President Zuma got his information from. He is not on
ground here but we are. So, we presume he is operating based on information
made available to him. We are working on what we got based on operation. As I
speak, we have record of 80 persons dead and 131 rescued alive. The figure rose
to 80 because we recovered two bodies by 11pm on Tuesday and another two at
about 3am today (Wednesday) and the rest between 10am and 4pm. We will continue
working until we get to the last level of excavation because it is
possible that more bodies are still trapped underneath the rubble.
On
list of victims
However,
a member of the church, who spoke on condition of anonymity to Vanguard,
assured that SCOAN was likely to come out with the list today.
The
worker said: “We were overwhelmed by the incident. And we were fully involved
in the rescue. I assure you that we will come out with the list by tomorrow
(today) because there is no way you can hide the corpses, as some of them need
to be flown to their respective countries”.
We
won’t confiscate site just yet—LAGOS
Meanwhile,
the Lagos State Government has stated that it had no plan to confiscate
the site of the collapsed building until investigation into its cause was
concluded.
In
a statement yesterday by the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban
Development, Olutoyin Ayinde, it said;
“Government does not arbitrarily take over
properties when investigation is still on-going. The state government is
conducting a preliminary investigation into the cause(s) of the collapse and
would leave no stone unturned. If there is any violation of relevant planning
law, residents are assured that government would take appropriate action.”
He
said that ‘there are no plans to take over the collapsed structure site until
thorough and detailed investigation as to the cause(s) of the collapse has been
concluded.
“A
team of engineers from the ministry and other government agencies are taking
samples from the foundation and materials from the wreckage of the building for
detailed analysis and testing to ascertain the structural integrity of the
building”.
On
the “Strange Plane Theory”, alleged to have dangerously flown low over the
building minutes before its collapse, Ayinde disclosed that the ministry had
submitted the video clips, as provided by the church to the Nigerian Civil
Aviation Authority (NCAA) with the co-ordinate of the collapsed site for
investigation and professional comment.
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