A Red Cross spokesperson, Nuruddeen Hussain Magaji, on Friday night, said no fewer than 21 pupils have died in the school building collapse that occurred in Plateau State.
Magaji said there were “21 fatalities and 69 injuries all in admission at various hospitals,” all victims in the building collapse that occurred at the Saints Academy, a secondary school in Jos.
The Guardian reports that the collapse occurred while students were writing their third term examination.
Earlier AFP had reported no fewer than 16 students were killed in the incident. The trapped students, the news agency added, were heard crying for help under the rubble.
Mechanical diggers tried to rescue the victims while parents desperately looked for their children.
Officials have so far only said “several students” were killed but an AFP reporter saw five dead bodies in one hospital morgue and 11 in another. All were wearing school uniforms.
With his mother at his hospital bedside, injured student Wulliya Ibrahim told AFP: “I entered the class not more than five minutes when I heard a sound, and the next thing is I found myself here.”
“We are many in the class, we are writing our exams,” he said.
The National Emergency Management Agency said the two-storey building housing Saint Academy collapsed killing “several students” without giving details.
“NEMA and other critical stakeholders are presently carrying out Search and Rescue operations,” it said.
A resident at the scene Chika Obioha told AFP he saw at least eight bodies at the site and that dozens more had been injured.
“Everyone is helping out to see if we can rescue more people,” he said.
