Over 50 Students Escape Death After Lecture Theatre Collapsed

Over 50 students of the Bayelsa State owned university, Niger Delta University (NDU), on Friday escaped death when a lecture theatre under construction collapsed at the permanent site of the institution.

LEADERSHIP investigation showed that the collapse was caused by the attempt by the contractors cutting corners.

An eyewitness identified as Preye told LEADERSHIP that the site engineer had turned down all requests by workers to apply standard procedure in the construction of the lecture theatre.

"Instead of using eight pans of sand and 12 pans of chipping, but he uses 15 pans of sand which is in excess.

"16mm is the ideal iron rod for the first decking, but he used 12mm iron rods. The pillars were not well cast; from the DPC, there was no proper base," he said.

Top members of the Nigeria Institute of Architects (NIA) who visited the scene of the collapsed building, attributed the collapse to the use of quack engineers for construction and announced its decision to set up a high powered committee to investigate the incident.

Leading the team of Architects the state chairman of the NIA, Stella Rain, said though a high powered committee had been set up to investigate the incident, the NIA had always warned against the use of quacks on construction sites in the state.

Chancellor of the NDU, Professor Humfrey Okonjo, told the team that the project monitoring team of the Institution informed him on the defects of the building, and they were in the process of finding solution to it when the building collapsed.