Ten days after a 21-storey building collapsed on Gerrard Road, in the Ikoyi area of Lagos State, two more bodies have been recovered.
The recovery brought the death toll to 46.
The PUNCH had reported that the building crumbled last Monday around 2pm.
Since the incident happened, family members of victims and sympathisers had thronged the area daily, hoping to see their loved ones alive, while some lamented that they were not allowed to identify their loved ones.
The affected families were, however, granted access on Saturday to find their members among the corpses recovered and deposited in the Lagos Mainland Hospital morgue, Yaba.
The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotosho, in a statement on Thursday, said two more bodies had been brought out of the rubble.
Omotosho, while denying reports that the state government wanted to demolish the other two buildings on the premises of the collapsed building, said an integrity test had not been conducted on the buildings.
Ikoyi building: Rescue team recovers one more body, death toll now 43
The statement read in part, “Contrary to speculations, no directive has been given for the demolition of the two high-rise buildings standing at the site of the 21-storey collapsed building in Ikoyi, Lagos. The panel of inquiry instituted to establish issues surrounding the collapse of the building has continued to sit and an integrity test is yet to be conducted on the buildings. It is, therefore, wrong to assert or speculate that the buildings will be demolished.
“The operation at the site of the collapsed building continues. Vehicular movement around the site has been smooth, following the reopening of the road. Two more bodies were recovered from the site today (Thursday).”
