New Telegraph

Two-storey building collapses at FMC, Umuahia

A two-storey building under construction yesterday collapsed at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Umuahia, Abia State. The building, one of the new structures replacing the old ones, had been under construction since 2019. It was meant to serve as the modern Accident and Emergency Unit. It was learnt that the building collapsed at about 1am yesterday.

However, no life was lost. Speaking with journalists on the development, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Prof. Azubuike Onyebuchi, was grateful that no life was lost. Onyebuchi, however, expressed sadness that the incident occurred at a time when there is a growing economic crisis in the country.

He lamented that the meagre resources would hardly condone such a waste. According to him, the contractor handling the building has not executed similar project in the hospital before. The project awarded in 2019 was at the plastering stage when it caved in. The CMD said he was not in a position to give information on the cause of the building collapse. According to him, the consultant and the contractor will make available such information subsequently.

He said: “I have a mixed feeling about it. I thank God no life was lost. We have scarce resources in the country at the moment. We should be having value for money. “So if anything like this has happened, I feel sad that the scarce resources that we have are going this way. “We are looking at it.

It just happened. We are going to have several meetings on this and find out what has gone wrong so that we can prevent that from happening again. We have learnt a lesson from that. “The building is still under construction and has not been handed over to us. So it’s still with the people handling it. Assuming it was handed over to us, then the patients and staff are there, then it collapses and kills people. I thank God no life was lost. We will see and get to the bottom of what has happened.” The contractor, consultant and supervisor were yet to arrive the scene of the building collapse at press time.

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