The number of bodies recovered from a fallen high-rise apartment building in Nigeria’s most populous metropolis has grown to 36, according to an emergency official.
Since Wednesday afternoon, 15 additional dead, including two previously reported, have been retrieved from the Lagos site, according to Ibrahim Farinloye of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.
As the rescue operation began its fourth day on Thursday, scores of families and residents queued up at the entrance of the premises and asked to help in the rescue mission, despite gun-wielding troops’ warnings that they should keep away.
“They couldn’t allow me to check whether my son is alive or dead,” said Abel Godwin, who came 448 kilometres from Abuja to see the hospital where casualties are being treated in the hopes of finding his 18-year-old son, who had worked there.
Since Tuesday, no survivors have been recovered from the rubble, despite the fact that nine people were hauled out alive earlier.
The 21-story luxury apartment complex, which was under construction, tumbled Monday while construction workers were on the site. Some of them were craftsmen who had only begun work that day.
It is unclear how many people are still trapped underneath the debris, but one construction worker believed that 100 people were working on the site when it collapsed, suggesting that about 55 are still missing.
