Six persons, including three children are feared dead in a building collapse in Bonny Street of Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The victims are now receiving medical attention in a private hospital.
The building which collapsed weekend, is a one-storey building with timber decking and 12 cm concrete wall on it.
One of the victims who gave his name as Mr Kenneth Mbamaru, stated that, “ I was in the house with my daughter and brother when suddenly we saw things crashing down on us “, and claimed that he did not even know the building had timber decking.
On further investigation it was found that Timber decking was rotten and splintered in some places.
A niece of one of the owners of the buildingwho simply gave her name as Green, blamed the disaster on the heavy duty equipment used by the construction contractor working on the street road.
According to her, at the time of collapse, her aunt who is a co-owner of the building confronted the contractor and later went to the police station to report the matter.
Chairman, Nigerian Institute of Builders, Rivers State Chapter, Akinola Bammeke, noted that buildings in that area of the city were old, hence the need to have integrity test carried out on them.
According to him,” overtime, buildings age and we need to carry out integrity test to ascertain if they are fit for habitation so that people do not blame every breeze that blows for collapse of the building.
‘’ Buildings are supposed to withstand a certain degree of stress. If you say a collapse is as a result of road work, then the government needs to know the integrity of the building so as to inform the contractor handling the job the conseguences of his activities on neighbouring buildings.
He stressed that there was need for periodically carrying out integrity test on all buildings, “especially on buildings that we do not know the designer and the quality of material used,” adding that there are some buildings that should be pulled down for lack of what he called air pocket and set-back.
Bammeke also said that there was need for builders to carry out inspections on buildings and sign them out as fit for habitation.
He urged the government to act now and put machineries into motion to carry out integrity tests on buildings, saying, “we should not wait until there are fatalities before we act’’.
Attempts by our correspondents to reach the contractor, the police and the State Commissioner for Urban Development and Physical Planning and his Works counterpart to comment on the matter were not successful.

Tonye Nria-Dappa