At least seven people died when a building collapsed in a suburban area of Nigeria’s capital over the weekend, a local official said Monday, Report informs via AP.
“We have called off search and rescue because we excavated and there was nobody left in the rubble,” said Nkechi Isa, a spokesperson for the Abuja city emergency department.
Building collapses are becoming increasingly common in Nigeria, with more than a dozen such incidents recorded in the last two years. Authorities often blame such disasters on failures to enforce building safety regulations and on poor maintenance.
The building that collapsed Saturday, located in the Sabon-Lugbe area, had already been partly demolished and its structure was further compromised by scavengers looking for scrap metal, according to a statement from the Abuja police released on Sunday.
Abuja police spokesperson Josephine Adeh said five people were rescued from the rubble.