‘Poor soil analysis can cause building collapse’

The Council of Nigerian Mining Engineers and Geoscientists (COMEG) and the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences society (NMGS) Thursday said poor soil analysis could be responsible for the spate of building collapse across the country.

Both regulatory bodies in a joint statement suggested that all buildings, especially high-rise ones, be built only after proper soil profiling by professionals.

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The registrar of the COMEG, Prof. Zacheus Opafunso and the president of NMGS, Surveyor Alabo Charlesye Charles, signed the statement.

They stated: “The success of any construction project is dependent on the underlying foundation soil; soils have a myriad of dynamics which could be at play and affect substructures even when foundation type might be right such as seismicity, liquefaction etc. and these dynamics are best studied/investigated by geologists.

 “In the advent of disasters such as these, studies of the subsurface in relation to the phenomenon are of importance and these fall strictly in the purview of geologists.”