A church building has collapsed in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State in in Nigeria, leaving at almost 200 people dead. The building was said to be filled up of worshippers due to a ceremony in which a pastor was being ordained as a bishop.
Church collapsed in Uyo, Nigeria
Report has it that the Reigners Bible Church was said to have still been under construction when the incident occurred. In fact, the deadly incident occurred when it hosted the ordination of Pastor Akan Week’s as bishop and the metal girders accidentally crashed and the corrugated iron roof caved in.
Local governor Udom Emmanuel who had attended the ceremony was lucky to survive the building collapse. He thereafter said in a message “It’s not a good thing. We are really, really devastated that this could happen.” …”But at the same time, I pray that people should be calm and let’s at least say that the situation, let’s see the causalities that we have and then be rest assured on the part of government we will do everything possible to make sure that this will never happen again in this state.”
Church roof collapsed in Uyo, Nigeria
Somehow, for the past three years, there has been a church building collapse every year and there have been reports of deaths in each case.
According to eyewitness, “When they noticed the cracks in the building, some decided to escape, one of the governor’s protocol pushed the governor out but the protocol officer could not make it, the building collapsed on him and he died. But it had little effects on the governor.”
“The secretary to the state government, Etekanba Umoren, is currently hospitalized due to the impact of the collapsed on him. The deputy governor was also there but I can tell his state right now. Some people are still given up. As at this morning, they are still getting more people out of the place.”
“The dead bodies are so many that to the extent that they loaded them like sardine to the hospitals. When they were removing some dead bodies this morning, one person was shouting, they took him to the emergency unit and he die there.”