Several students feared dead as school building collapses, more than 200 trapped

Several high school students were killed in central Nigeria on Friday when a school building collapsed as they were attending classes, according to the country’s emergency services.

Footage broadcast on Nigerian television showed rescue workers and ambulances evacuating the injured, as dozens of bystanders and students sifted through the rubble of the school, called Saint Academy, in the city of Jos. The three-story building looked as though it had been sheared in half, with one part still standing and the other, including the large corrugated iron roof, collapsed on the ground.

Heavy rains pounded Jos over the last few days, and more thunderstorms and downfalls are expected in the coming week.

Eyewitnesses, students’ friends and relatives rushed to the site of the building after it suddenly collapsed on Friday morning. An eyewitness, Hosea Donald, 41, said that he and other bystanders had pulled out the bodies of eight students who died in the collapse, and that damaged roads were making the site hard to reach for ambulances.

“I know six people who were at school this morning, and I’ve only heard back from two,” Rejoice Pamju, 21, said after returning home from the site of the collapsed building.

Eugene Nyelon, an official with the National Emergency Management Agency, said on Friday afternoon that injured and dead students had been taken to three nearby hospitals. He declined to provide an exact death toll or to say whether teachers or other adults had been trapped in the rubble, saying that the rescue operation was ongoing.

Dorcas Ison, a health care worker at Plateau State Hospital, said 10 people had been pronounced dead at the hospital, and 10 people were receiving treatment as of Friday evening, with relatives coming in and out of the hospital to identify the victims.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has the highest number of building collapses on the continent, Farouk Salim, director general of the country’s public regulatory agency, acknowledged last year. More than 220 buildings were recorded to have collapsed over the past four decades, according to Mr. Salim, with 60 percent of such incidents occurring in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city.

The real figures might be higher still. More than 600 buildings have collapsed over the last 40 years, according to a report released this month by the Building Collapse Prevention Guild, an advocacy group promoting safer construction practices in Nigeria. As of July 7, 22 buildings already had collapsed this year, the guild said.

The use of low-quality building material, poor or no soil testing upon construction, and lax supervision and maintenance often contribute to the collapses, the guild and other building experts say, and those poor practices can be compounded by harsh weather.