NIGERIA
Dereliction and Tragedy
Emergency workers were scrambling to rescue scores of schoolchildren trapped in the rubble of a three-story building that collapsed Wednesday in the Nigerian city of Lagos.
At least 10 people have been confirmed dead and 40 others have been rescued alive, BBC reported. Witnesses said that at least 100 children were in the primary school on the building’s top floors when the structure collapsed.
The cause of the accident is not yet known, but such disasters are relatively common in Nigeria due to poor regulatory oversight, the agency said.
Plan International Nigeria, a children’s rights group, called for a government inquiry that ensures “all persons found culpable for dereliction of duties are punished,” the Associated Press reported.
Akinwunmi Ambode, the governor of Lagos State, said the school had been operating illegally in a residential building and most buildings in the area had been marked for demolition, the New York Times reported. But locals blamed the government for failing to carry out those plans – saying that the building had instead recently been refurbished.
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