Just about a
week after an uncompleted Guest House owned by The Synagogue Church of All
Nations collapsed in Lagos killing over 80 people, another church building has
caved in at Egor local government area of Edo state. Premium Times reports:
The collapse
of the one-storey building, owned by the Christ Chosen Church of God, is feared
to have led to the death of three people whose identities are yet to be
determined.
Witnesses
said the incident occurred at about 12.45pm on Friday.
The Edo
State Commissioner of Police, Foluso Adebanjo, told journalists one person has
been confirmed dead while five others were rescued alive, with injuries.
He said
there were however speculations that two more people were still trapped in the
rubbles. Continue..
“One is
unfortunately dead. Though there are rumours that we still have two people
there; of course, there is absolute calm for now,” Mr. Adebanjo said.
The collapse
of the building almost resulted in chaos as some angry youth burnt a bus owned by the church in protest of the
incident.
Our
correspondent however gathered that the collapsed building was an old
residential building within the church premises, quite different from the
auditorium the church uses for worship and other activities.
The
building, it was further gathered, was being demolished by youths hired by the
church before it collapsed on the workmen.
“The owner
of Christ Chosen Church Deliverance Centre told us to demolish the building
because they wanted more space in the compound,” one of the workmen who
survived said.
“But some of
us went out to eat because we were hungry. As we were eating, we saw many
people rush to where we were coming from. We thought it was a fire outbreak.
But when we got there, we discovered that the building has collapsed.”
He
continued, “We were nine in number but four of my colleagues were in the
building before it collapsed. Two were brought out alive with injuries. One
died and was brought out and two others are still under the building, dead. We
have already demolished the upper part of the building and wanted to break the
pillars of the lower parts so that the building would fall. It was when one of
us started the work that the building fell.”
Witnesses
also insisted that at least three people might have died although rescue work
is continuing late into the evening.
The church
authorities are yet to speak on the incident.
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