Says Govt Will Demolish Buildings That Fail Integrity Test
To prevent a repeat of the fire incident in Dosunmu area of Lagos Island, where four buildings got razed, the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, has appealed to residents to please play by the rules as non compliance to safety rules and building codes compounded the fire incident.
Oke-Osanyintolu, who was at the scene of the Dosunmu fire tragedy on Friday, said it was the reason that three days after the fire accident, LASEMA is still damping the scene of the incident, especially as most of the items in the shops were flammable materials, yet the shops owners do not have fire extinguishers, just as the buildings were too close to one another.
He, therefore, enjoined the traders and others to abide by rules, as they could not continue to do things the same way and expect different results.
“We are appealing to them to abide by all safety procedures, they should not store diesel inside their shops, and they should not use inflammable materials. While they are building their houses, they should use materials that will prevent fire from skipping from one building to the other.
“They should keep to the building code; there should be space between one building and another. These are things they should put in place to ensure we do not have this kind of occurrence,” Oke-Osanyintolu said.
The LASEMA boss disclosed that the state government would conduct material integrity tests on six buildings around the fire incident to ascertain their structural stability.
He maintained that if the buildings failed the integrity tests, they would be pulled down immediately to avert building collapse and another disaster.
“We have been on the ground since Wednesday; we have been able to curtail the fire. The buildings are built in such a way that there is poor accessibility. There was no casualty or mortality, it affected four buildings and two were down. I sympathise with those who lost their buildings. We are still doing damping. We will subject the adjacent building to material integrity tests to determine what we will do next.
“If the building fails material testing, we will bring it down to ground zero. We are going to do material testing on six buildings in all,” he said.
