(Jos) At least 21 people, mostly students, were killed and 69 injured Friday in central Nigeria when a school collapsed during exams, the Red Cross and witnesses said.
The tragedy at the Saint Academy school in Jos, the capital of Plateau State, left “21 people dead and 69 injured” who were “all admitted to various hospitals”, Red Cross spokesman Nuruddeen Hussain Magaji told AFP.
Earlier, an AFP journalist saw five bodies in one hospital morgue and 11 in another. All were wearing school uniforms.
Trapped students screamed for help under the rubble of their school as it collapsed onto classrooms.
Mechanical excavators were working to try to rescue victims trapped under the rubble as parents desperately searched for their children.
PHOTO MUHAMMAD TANKO SHITTU, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Crowds gathered around the collapsed concrete building and piles of debris.
Jos authorities had earlier said “several students” were killed in the partial collapse of the school.
“Tragic loss”
“Devastated by the tragic loss of young lives at Saint Academy,” UNICEF Nigeria Representative Cristian Munduate wrote on X. “Children full of dreams were sitting their exams when the school building collapsed. Our deepest condolences to the affected families.”
In his hospital bed, one of the injured students, Wulliya Ibrahim, 15, said he “entered the classroom” and that “barely five minutes later” he “heard a noise” before “finding himself here”.
The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, had said a two-storey building housing the Holy Academy in Busa Buji collapsed, “killing several students”.
A resident, Chika Obioha, said he saw at least eight bodies at the scene and many injured people.
“Everyone is trying to figure out how to save more people,” he said.
The AFP correspondent said he saw 11 bodies at the morgue of Bingham University Hospital and five others taken to the morgue of Our Lady of the Apostles Hospital in Jos.
At least 15 rescued and injured students were hospitalized, officials at the school said.
PHOTO AP PHOTOS, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Red Cross representatives carry a man from the rubble of a collapsed two-story building in Jos, Nigeria, July 12.
Officials at Bingham University Hospital declined to comment.
Laxity
The cause of the collapse has not been clearly established, but residents say it happened after three days of heavy rain.
Building collapses are quite common in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, due to lax enforcement of building standards, negligence and the use of poor quality materials.
At least 45 people were killed in 2021 when a building under construction collapsed in the upscale Ikoyi district of Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital.
Ten people were killed the following year when a three-storey building collapsed in the Ebute-Metta area of Lagos.
Since 2005, at least 152 buildings have collapsed in Lagos, according to a South African university researcher investigating construction disasters.