A middle-aged man has reportedly lost his life in a collapsed two-storey building at the Egbelu Mgbaraja axis of Ogbogoro Community in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State.
This comes barely a week after the collapse of a three-storey building at the Iriebe axis of the same LGA, although no life was lost in that incident.
A witness, Mr. Jonathan Obey, said the building under construction at Ogbogoro caved in on Monday, at about 2pm while the contractors were working on the 2nd floor, killing one of them, while another narrowly escaped with severe injuries.
He said deliberate infractions by the property developer may have caused the building to collapse.
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He said: “It’s a building collapse, as we speak one person is trapped right inside the rubble, when we first came, we tried to rescue the person but we couldn’t. When we did our investigation, we found out that they used substandard materials to execute the project, we also found out that the foundation was 3ft for a 2-storey building which was wrong.
“We also found out that some of the rods used by the builders were of low quality, the decking itself was not chained, there was no center beam, it was supposed to have a center beam and a pillar at the middle but it doesn’t have that. They did not use enough cement in casting the first decking.”
Meanwhile, the Rivers State Government has sealed the premises of the collapsed building and declared the property developer, Vincent Nwoye, wanted.
The Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Evans Bipi, during an on-the-spot inspection of the collapsed building accused the developer of gross negligence and default of the extant building laws and regulations the state.
He cited failure by the property developer to obtain government-approved building plan and use of substandard materials as the cause of the building collapse and avoidable death.
Bipi said: “We have repeatedly warned that if you are caught building without government-approved building plan, you will certainly face the penalty.
“Government has sealed this property in question and declared the owner wanted because a life has been lost, we need to question him to know why he choose to use substandard materials to execute the project, on why he decided to use 12mm rod for a 2-storey building.
“It would interest the public to know that even the property does not have government approval, it is something the government will not take lightly, we will use this developer as scapegoat for others to learn.”
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