3 months ago
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When did the construction that caused the mosque to collapse start?
It started this morning. They have even done what they are supposed to but for one reason or the other, they were trying to perfect it. So it lasted till the prayer time (Solat). So everything happened around 1:50 pm. I was in the mosques when it happened and from my own counting, we were about 40 in there. The children in the mosque were much older, so they suffered more casualties than the adults. I had six children behind me when we were praying but we can’t say exactly where they are and we don’t have anybody talking about missing children now and we can’t say precisely whether they were rescued alive or not.
At what point did you notice the mosque was about to collapse?
We were in the mosque praying and after we finished praying, most of us waited to observe additional prayers. It was during this period that one of us shouted “Look at the tiles, it is coming up” It was at that point that we saw that the wall was moving towards us, and that was when everyone started to run out of the mosque.
How many people were able to escape at that time?
The entrance into the mosque was three and immediately the mosque collapsed, we had only two entrances available at that point because the main entrance was the third one and no one could go through there because the person would fall directly into the place they dug. So from my side, there were about 15 people that escaped but I really cannot say the number of people that escaped from the other side.
So what happened afterwards?
Immediately some of us were able to escape, and the community members who witnessed what happened were already rushing towards the collapsed building to see how they could rescue the trapped victims. They also started calling LASEMA, but they did not come on time. It took them around 45 minutes before they arrived. By the time they arrived, there was nothing much to do as the people had already removed people from the rubble. Two people were rescued, We lost, the first one, a girl. The parents of the boy are paying heavily for his medical bills. The boy was carried to the hospital by LASEMA. But we are still looking for a man who fetched water for the community. His cart is still there and we haven’t seen him.
Was there anything the mosque raised concerns about the excavation?
They started the excavation last week from Bello junction, a street opposite us and immediately they got to our mosque, one of our fathers approached them and asked what their operation looked like and they said they would stop at the mosque and wouldn’t go beyond the point whereby it would affect the mosque. It was on Sunday morning that they started to dig the ground beside the mosque. If they had told us that the mosque would be affected, we would have closed it leave there for some time but they did not tell us, that was why we continued the prayer. The guy touched the other side of the foundation, so by the time it wanted to collapse, it was going sideways. There was nothing wrong with the foundation of the mosque before the incident but because of the construction, it has to pave the way. And the contractor dug more than he was supposed to dig.
How many construction workers were at the spot?
I think about two or three of them. Immediately after the incident happened, the man in the excavator ran away. We also got to know that the supervisor was in the mosque observing the prayers when it collapsed. He was among the injured persons.
Being a victim of the incident, how are you feeling now?
I have been badly injured and my back is aching as I speak to you. I should have gone to the hospital but as the chairman of the mosque, I had to wait behind to ensure that people were rescued.
What form of intervention do you seek from the government following this incident?
Right now they have denied us our place of worship and that is the only central one that people worship. Right now, I have been unable to observe mogreeb prayer because of the reckless attitude of that person. So we want this place tidy, the rubble has to be cleared for us even if it takes us to pray in the sun.
The local government chairman has been here with some other government officials and they asked us to put up a report about the incident and submit it to them. We want them to find a place where we can worship for us to converge otherwise there is no place to pray.
