According to reports, many individuals have been trapped, with five individuals rescued following the collapse of a warehouse in the Sabon Gari area of Minna, located in Niger State.
Information gathered suggests that approximately 50 people were inside the warehouse during the offloading of two truckloads of soft drinks before its collapse on Friday at Kasuwan Gwari Market.
An eyewitness, Aliyu Umaru said, “Many people were trapped in the building. Some were pulled out dead while some seriously injured ones were being rushed to hospital. Their condition was critical. One particular victim was panting for air as he was being carried to the hospital. I doubt if he will survive,” he said.
He said that the warehouse, previously a residential structure, is consistently overloaded with soft drinks and bottled water, a factor he suspected could have precipitated the collapse.
Additionally, he mentioned that one of the victims, transported to the hospital, succumbed to the injuries sustained. However, the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), upon verifying the incident, stated that no fatalities were recorded.
Abdullahi Baba-Arah, the Director General of NSEMA, asserted in a statement that the building would be demolished as it lacked authorisation for conversion from a residential building to a warehouse.
“NSEMA received a distress call at 3:15 pm of a building collapse at Sabon Gari area of Minna. The agency quickly alerted responding agencies for search and rescue operations. The search and rescue operations were conducted under the leadership of NSEMA, NEMA, the State Urban Development Board, and the State Environmental Protection Agency in conjunction with the Federal Fire Service, the police, NSCDC, NDLEA, the Red Cross, vigilance groups and some volunteers.
“As at the time of filing this report, no life was lost; five people were rescued with various degrees of injuries, while two people escaped unhurt. An excavator was brought in to help in clearing the debris for possible entrapment. NEMA also brought life detecting gadgets, but after intensive searching for about three hours, no one was trapped,” Baba-Arah said.
