LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – The collapse of a building complex under construction has killed 34 mainly foreign workers in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos, officials said Thursday.
National Emergency Management Agency’s spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye said 13 people were saved from the rubble in the rescue operation that started after the Tuesday pre-dawn collapse and ended Wednesday night. He said most victims were from Benin and Niger.
Lagos state says it had ordered work to stop because the five-story structure was beyond the height approved by a building permit. It ordered directors of the Lekki Gardens property development to turn themselves into the police to be prosecuted.
Buildings collapse often in Nigeria because corruption has builders cutting corners. In 2014, a building of televangelist T.B. Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations caved in and killed 116 people, dozens of them South African. A court last year ordered that the church and two structural engineers be prosecuted for criminal negligence. The church is challenging the order.