At least eight children have died and many more are feared trapped after a building containing a school collapsed in the Nigerian city of Lagos.
The school, which was on the top floor of the three-storey building in Ita Faji on Lagos Island, had more than 100 pupils, a rescue official told the BBC.
About 40 pupils were pulled out alive, the official said. Rescuers were frantically searching for more. The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear
The collapsed building was a residential block containing a number of apartments as well as the school, residents and rescue officials at the scene told the BBC.
Emergency teams pulled several injured pupils from the rubble, but many worried parents at the scene were unable to find their children, while others went to a local hospital to look for theirs.
Mohammed Muftau, a local resident who witnessed the collapse, told the BBC that the building had been cracking for long time and that complaints had been raised about it.
At the Lagos Island General Hospital, there was a scene of chaos as parents and family members scrambled after every ambulance that arrived to see if it contained a loved one. Many of the victims brought in were children in school uniforms.
Visiting the hospital, the Lagos state deputy governor, Idiat Oluranti Adebule, offered condolences to the families of the victims and called for calm.
“We plead for their understanding to allow the rescue team to do their work… so that the medical team can take prompt and immediate action as soon as the patients are brought in,” she told the BBC.
Emeh Achanga,the CEO of the Miss Petite Nigeria Brand is a lawyer turned blogger. She is very passionate about writing, with several publications and awards to her credit .She is currently working on publishing a collection of short stories which are basically a memoir about her exciting true experiences.
