Nigeria : School Building Collapse Kills 22 Students

Nigerian authorities have confirmed the death of 22 students after a two-storey school building collapsed in Central Nigeria. The Saint Academy building in Plateau State’s Busa Buji Community collapsed on Friday, July 12, 2024 shortly after students, many of them younger than 15, arrived for classes, the authorities said on Saturday, July 13, 2024. Speaking to the media, police spokesman Alfred Alabo said, a total of 154 students were initially trapped in the rubble, but 132 of them have been rescued and were being treated for injuries in various hospitals in the State. Local government officials ordered local hospitals to treat the patients without requiring payment or documenting each case.
Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said in a Facebook post that 30 people are still in hospital. Rescue workers had tried to reach the victims using heavy machinery, and images from the scene showed crowds gathering around a caved-in concrete building and piles of rubble. Dozens of villagers gathered near the school, some weeping and others offering to help, as excavators combed through the debris from the part of the building that had caved in. NEMA said rescue and health workers as well as security forces had been deployed at the scene immediately after the collapse, launching a search for the trapped students.
The State government of Plateau blamed the tragedy on the school’s “weak structure and location near a riverbank”. Authorities often blame such disasters on a failure to enfo...