Three people have been found dead and many others are still trapped as rescue operations continue after a high-rise building under construction collapsed in Ikoyi, Lagos.
At the time of filing this report, a digger was at the scene and rescue workers and some locals were searching through heaps of rubble and twisted metal for survivors.
Earlier, pictures from the site showed crowds near a huge mound of debris.
Lagos has seen several building collapses in recent years.
The causes of this incident, in the upmarket district of Ikoyi, are still unclear.
The building, which was going to be a luxury block of flats, reportedly gave way at 14:45 local time (13:45 GMT).
One witness, who was working in an office opposite, said he heard a sound, looked out of his window and “saw the building literally going down floor by floor”, he told the BBC’s OS programme.
“It is a 25-storey building still under construction. Many workers are trapped under the rubble. We are trying to rescue them,” Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, the head of the state emergency management agency said.
The authorities have put an emergency rescue plan into place.
Some of the workers at the site said their colleagues were still trapped in the rubble.
“I feel so bad because the people that are inside they have family,” one of them identified as Latif Shittu said.
It can be recalled that in 2019, 10 people died after a school collapsed in Lagos.
And in September 2014, 116 people died when a six-storey building collapsed in Lagos during a service given by a celebrity televangelist.
Building standards have often been criticised and the Lagos state authorities recently launched a new scheme to improve certification.
