At least 20 people are dead, and others are missing after a school building collapsed in Nigeria.
The incident happened on Wednesday in Ita Faji, a neighborhood in Lagos, reports the BBC. The school was housed in the top floor of a four-story residential apartment building. The government labeled the structure “distressed” and was scheduled to demolish it.
Rescuers and helpful residents managed to pull 37 children from the rubble alive, and 10 corpses have been recovered. There were about 100 children in the building when it fell.
Building collapses are not uncommon in Nigeria due to subpar materials and lenient enforcement of building regulations, according to The Associated Press. They are often built quickly without proper inspection. A six-story building collapsed in 2014, resulting in 116 deaths. Two years later, over 100 people died when the roof of a church fell during a service.
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"Nigeria's infrastructure is generally less than half the size than in the average sub-Saharan Africa country and only a fraction of that in emerging market economies," read a report from the International Monetary Fund. "The perceived quality of the infrastructure is low."
The Nigerian government has called off the search, according to The Guardian. Kehinde Adebayo, a spokesman for the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, confirmed the new development.
“We have gotten to ground zero. The debris has been cleared,” Adebayo said. “All those trapped have been evacuated and the rescue operation has ended.”
Officials are still confirming the number of dead and rescued people.
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