Nigerian school tragedy
People search through the tangle of the rubble to find belongings of their loved ones
ALGIERS: Algeria’s new prime minister, Noureddine Bedoui, said yesterday that his government would be in charge for a “short period” and would support the work of a national conference for a political transition.
An independent commission will oversee Algeria’s presidential election, he also told a news conference in Algiers.
Ailing president Abelaziz Bouteflika decided not to run for a fifth term in the face of mass demonstrations. Bedoui was appointed premier this week after his predecessor, Ahmed Ouyahia, resigned.
Bedoui said he would form an inclusive and technocratic government that involved young Algerians who have been staging protests. | Reuters NIGERIAN officials halted search efforts yesterday, a day after a school building collapsed in Lagos with an unknown number of children inside.
The death toll was eight and could rise.
As some anguished families protested, National Emergency Management Agency official Ibrahim Farinloye said workers had reached the foundation of the collapsed three-storey building and did not expect to find more people.
Nearly 50 people were rescued from the building on Wednesday. An unknown number of people remained missing. Frantic efforts had gone into the night to find signs of life in the debris.
It was not yet known what caused the collapse of the building containing a school in a crowded suburb at the heart of Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos.
Building collapses are all too common in the West African nation, where new construction often goes up without regulatory oversight.
Lagos state governor Akinwunmi Ambode said the building, which had been marked for demolition, was classified as residential and the school was operating illegally on the top two floors.
As many as 100 children had been in the primary school on the building’s top floors, witnesses said. Some authorities disputed that.
“It touches one to lose precious lives in any kind of mishap, particularly those so young and tender,” said Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
The president asked the government of Lagos state, Nigeria’s economic hub, “to do all that is needful so that such tragic developments do not recur in future”.
The collapse came as Buhari, recently elected to a second term as president, tries to improve groaning, inefficient infrastructure in Africa’s most populous nation.
Earlier yesterday, families kept vigil at a hospital for children pulled from the wreckage. About two dozen people, mostly women, were gathered outside the wing where hospital officials said seven children were being treated.
At the site of the collapse, people searched through the tangle of rubble and metal on Thursday to find any belongings of their children.
On Wednesday, one person was confirmed dead. More people had died after being taken to hospital, Adesina | Reuters
Tiamiyu, the general manager of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, said yesterday.
Locals, including a relative of a child who was killed, said there had been a number of building collapses in the area over the last few years.
They said some buildings deemed by state government officials to be uninhabitable were renovated by landlords seeking rent. | Reuters