At Least 22 Dead After School Building Collapse in Nigeria

A Plateau state police spokesman stated that 132 people have been rescued and are receiving treatment for their injuries in various hospitals. The Plateau state government attributed the tragedy to the school’s “weak structure and location near a riverbank” and urged schools facing similar issues to shut down【Muhammad Tanko Shittu/AFP】.

The Associated Press news agency quoted Alabo confirming that 22 students were dead. An earlier report by Nigerian media had stated at least 12 fatalities. Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) posted on Facebook that 30 people remain in the hospital and that the rescue operation has ended with the site cleared.

Rescue workers used heavy machinery to reach the victims, and images from the scene showed crowds gathering around the collapsed concrete building and piles of rubble. Dozens of villagers assembled near the school, some weeping and others offering to help, as excavators combed through the debris. One woman was seen wailing and trying to approach the rubble as others held her back. Emergency personnel were deployed immediately after the collapse to search for the trapped students. “To ensure prompt medical attention, the government has instructed hospitals to prioritize treatment without documentation or payment,” said Plateau state’s commissioner for information, Musa Ashoms, in a statement. The Plateau state government attributed the tragedy to the school’s “weak structure and location near a riverbank” and urged schools facing similar issues to shut down. Building collapses are becoming increasingly common in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, with more than a dozen such incidents recorded in the last two years.

Authorities often attribute such disasters to a failure to enforce building safety regulations, the use of substandard construction materials, and poor maintenance. In 2021, at least 45 people died when a high-rise building under construction collapsed in the upscale Ikoyi district of Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital. In 2022, a three-storey building collapse in the Ebute-Metta area of Lagos resulted in at least 10 deaths.

According to a South African university researcher investigating construction disasters, at least 152 buildings have collapsed in Lagos since 2005.