A 60-year-old woman and 19 others on Thursday escaped death as a-storey building collapsed in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
The building located opposite the secretariat of the Abeokuta South Local Government Council, residents said, had long shown signs of dilapidation before it caved in on Thursday morning.
Although personal effects of the residents of the 50-year-old building were destroyed, no life was lost.
The building had already been marked for demolition by the state government to pave way for the expansion of Ake Palace Road.
One of the residents, who simply identified himself as Samuel said, “The sudden crack of the building where some of us have been living for years sent signal of impending dangers to us and we started packing our loads.
“We had barely started to hearken to what we described as a warning when the building caved in with a thunderous sound.”
Another occupant, Mrs. Risikatu Madojutimi, a local gin seller, who had a shop in the building, said the earlier cracks on the structure saved them from danger.
She said, “The crack signal was the saving grace for all of us as we started moving out. But we were surprised that it was not quite long that we started moving our belongings than the building finally collapsed’’
“It was through the grace of God that all of us escaped from the building as we scampered to safety.”
Another occupant of the building, Amuda Olowonyo, said she narrowly escaped being trapped as she was inside her make-shift shop beside the building attending to some of her customers.
Displaying remnants of the food items inside her coolers, Amuda who claimed she lost goods worth about N30,000, thanked God for sparing her life and those of her customers.
“It was a narrow escape for me and my customers minute delay would have been disastrous for us,’’ she said.
Chairman of Abeokuta South Local Government, Lanre Edun, who spoke with newsmen at the scene, blamed the collapse of the building on the heavy rain that fell the previous day.
Edun said, “Government quickly responded to the incident with the invitation of the men of the fire service and other relevant rescue teams.”
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