No fewer than 16 people have reportedly been killed and several more seriously injured after when a building collapsed in Cameroon’s business hub Douala, firefighters have confirmed.
A three-year-old girl was among the victims and another three children are in intensive care, said hospital officials.
A senior fire brigade official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the current death toll of 16 people was a provisional toll.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that the four-storey block collapsed onto another residential building around 1:30 am (0030 GMT) in the north of the city.
Rescue workers were scouring the debris for survival.
‘The situation is under control and firefighters are working to ensure no one remains under the rubble’, said Littoral region governor Samuel Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua, who visited the site of the collapse.
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Douala’s Laquintinie hospital said it had taken in 13 patients and said two — a girl of three and a young woman of 19 — had died.
It added that three children among those injured were receiving emergency treatment.
The others in hospital included two teenage girls, a 28-year-old woman and five men.
Five people died in similar circumstances in Douala in 2016 when authorities blamed the poor state of repairs and apparent violations of building regulations.
In June of that year, local authorities identified 500 buildings in danger of collapse.
In another report, the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee on International Boundary Dispute Between Nigeria and Cameroon has revealed that it might consider a fresh application to appeal the International Court of Justice judgment that ceded Bakassi to Cameroon in the coming months.
The Ad hoc Committee was set up by the House to probe the case of encroachment into another Cross River State territory by Cameroon.
The Danare and Biajua communities and about 7,000–10,000 hectares of land in the Boki Area of Cross River State risk being lost to Cameroon according to a motion by lawmakers from the state last week.
The lawmakers, in the motion that was presented by Hon Victor Abang, had said this was as a result of the non-location of pillar 113A by the technical committee of the Cameroon- Nigeria Mixed Commission.