Many feared dead after building collapses in Nigeria

A three-storey residential building collapsed on Wednesday (March 13) in a densely-populated part of Lagos.

Many people including school children are feared trapped in a building which collapsed in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos on Wednesday, an emergency agency spokesman said.

The Nigerian news station Channels TV reported that a primary school was located on the top floor of the building, "with pupils feared killed and others trapped".

The collapse occurred in the Itafaji area of Lagos Island.

A spokesman for the Nigerian emergency services, Ibrahim Farinloye, confirmed the incident.

Building collapses are tragically common in Nigeria, where building regulations are routinely flouted.

In September 2014, 116 people, 84 of the South Africans, died when a six-storey building collapsed as a celebrity televangelist, Joshua TB, was preaching. An inquiry found the building had been built illegally and had structural flaws.

In December 2016, at least 60 people were killed when a roof fell in on a church in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom state, in the east of the country.