Collapsed building: FCT Minister orders FHA officials, developer’s arrest

FAVOUR ISHEMBER, Abuja

 

 

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Muhammad Bello, has directed security agencies to arrest the officials of the Federal Housing Authority and the developer of the collapsed two-story building in Abuja.

 

Briefing journalists in Abuja on Saturday, the Coordinator, of Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, Umar Shuaibu, said the minister ordered the arrest of the FHA officials saddled with monitoring the development, granting the development permit, the developer, and the engineer supervising the development, for manslaughter.

 

Shuaibu explained that the uncompleted building that collapsed two days ago at 6th Avenue in Gwarimpa Estate, trapped 24 persons, with three confirmed dead, while 21 persons have been rescued.

 

The coordinator said FCT Administration would conduct a thorough investigation to unravel the causes of the incidence and take appropriate steps towards prevention of future occurrences.

 

He said: “The minister of FCT Malam Muhammad Bello has directed the security agencies to arrest the FHA officer in charge of granting the building development permit, the FHA officer is saddled with monitoring the development, developer and the engineer supervising the development for the developer.

 

“All the surrounding developments identified by the AMMC and Development Control around the neighbourhood, that require investigation of their structural integrity, were henceforth sealed and declared out of bound by anybody, pending the outcome of integrity test presently being conducted”.

 

The suspended two-story building that collapsed two days ago at 6th avenue in Gwarimpa Estate, is sitting on three districts, Gwarimpa II, Wupa and Bunkoro.

 

 

Also speaking, the Director of, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) Department of Development Control, Murktar Galadima, who described the incident as very unfortunate and embarrassing, said, ” immediately when we received the information, we invited our relevant consultant to conduct a teat and give us the remote causes of the incidence,  from that test we got from the result of the collapse as dictated by the ubmainde  Area vehicle of the drone and other test carried out on the site.

 

 

“It was discovered that three major foundations were revealed to have been placed on a consolidated soil formation and partly on a rocky base that moved thereby, resulting in a slide that caused the collapse.

 

” Unacceptable concrete strength of some major structural members were revealed and concluded from the final result gotten”.

 

“Differential settlement resulting in a slide of some of the critical columns from behind as indicated in the graph attached”

 

“Also, there was Irregular structural foundation-based positioning by the contractor, some Foundation base was an update of 1200mm, which is 1.2 meters, while some were at 1400 mm, that’s 1. 4-meter debt, without proper foundation starts in the whole foundation formation, thereby resulting in a sudden settlement and punching,” he said.

 

Galadima explained that there was  Poor unsubstandard material selection for construction, structurally unacceptable concrete mix ratio.

 

 

Also gotten from the tests include,  Poor connection of Structure members, especially the slab to the bins and columns connection; Lack of technical know-how in foundation time connection”

 

 

The foundation base reinforcement was insufficient for the structure and substandard materials were used for the main structural members’ construction and poor accuracy of major structural members.

 

The Director lamented that there was also  Improper nondiscrimination of structural members, thereby causing fatigue on the major column undergoing differential settlement, causing the structure not to show signs of failure before the collapse.

 

And finally, he said ” insufficient structural provision of some structural members of the collapsed structure by the developer. Based on this, we got the information from the site, that the collapse site and the other site under construction are being supervised by the same engineer,  so we move on and assign our consultant to carry out an investigation, if the results come out negative, we will move immediately.

We were there yesterday with members of Standard Organization and Staff of National Building Road service delivery together, they collected some samples for further investigation. We will like to assure you that, if the results of these tests come out negative we will apply to appreciate sanctions, which is demolition”.

 

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