Akwa-nord: Ten-year-old building collapses

Three persons sustained injuries and are receiving medical attention, while the cause is unknown.

Broken blocks, twisted (rusted) iron bars, planks lying haphazardly and a macabre image, was what greeted anyone who ventured through the main road leading to Akwa-nord.

What was initially destined to as an architectural beauty, now constitutes but a shadow of itself. In the evening of Friday April 9, a building under construction collapsed, wounding three persons. The debris equally crushed part of the roof and the side wall of a house adjacent to it, as well as that of a one-floor storey building directly behind it. The cause of the accident was still unknown at press time.

According to eye witnesses, the infamous event occurred around 6:30 pm. “My junior sister and I were sitting outside the shop. People were still working on the site, when suddenly we heard a loud noise. Then the whole area was covered by dust, as if it was smoke. We were so shocked that we first of all ran to save ourselves. It is only after the dust had settled down that we discovered the building directly opposite us had collapsed,” explained a shop owner who witnessed the incident.

Passersby who stopped by the scene were quick to give their judgements. They could be heard condemning the quality of the materials used; others estimated that the iron bars were not big enough, while some considered the number of storeys to be too “high”. Talking to Alice D., whose house was hit, CT gathered that three persons were wounded by the fallen structure.

“There were two children who were transporting sand in buckets. One other person was upstairs, working in the building. They have been transported to the Deido hospital since they sustained injuries.” As concerns the duration of the work site, our informant added: “The building is at least 10 years old. After the first two years, works stopped and it remained untouched for about eight years. It is barely six months ago that they resumed and the builders were already mounting the third floor”.

After a descent to the field by elements of the fire fighting brigade and others officials, it was discovered that no human loss was recorded. However, this adds to a series of road mishaps that have been permanent threats to the local population for the past months.