“MADE THEIR DECISION ALREADY”
Distraught relatives and friends of the victims have been waiting at the scene since Monday, seeking information on their fate.
Damilola Otunla, 29, sat on the pavement across the street on Wednesday pursuing a three-day vigil for her brother Bob-Oseni Wale, 50, believed to have been inside the building when it collapsed.
When she heard news of the disaster on Monday, she immediately rushed to the scene from her home in neighbouring Ogun state.
Wearing the same grey hoodie, black shorts and flip flops since Monday, Otunla looked sad, her eyes empty, as she recalled how her much older brother had acted like a father.
“He took me in like his own daughter,” she added.
Her brother lives in the US state of Maryland but had been home for the past few months and was visiting a friend working on the building site, she said.
He was meant to fly back on Monday when the tragedy happened.
She was angry with the slow pace of the daily rescue efforts, which on Wednesday had not started as of 8.30am.
“It is like they have made their decision already,” she said.
“RETRIEVAL OPERATION”
A friend of another victim who did not want to be identified “because it won’t change anything”, said that “what they are doing is a retrieval operation not a rescue operation”.
But emergency service official Farinloye said that rescuers “won’t give up until we reach ground zero”, adding that bigger equipment was brought in Tuesday evening for the operation.
“We’re still very hopeful,” Governor Sanwo-Olu said, explaining that water and oxygen were being inserted into the pile of debris, in case it could help any survivors.
“We don’t know how long it is going to take, but we can assure you that we have enough resources … to take as long as it takes,” he assured.
The number of people present on the site at the time of the collapse is still unknown, he added.
In one of Nigeria’s worst building disasters, more than 100 people, mostly South Africans, died when a church guesthouse crumbled in Lagos in 2014.
An inquiry found the building had been built illegally and had structural flaws.
Two years later, at least 60 people were killed when a roof fell on a church in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom state, in the east of the country.
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