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The Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority (ECTDA), yesterday, warned that any building that was not completed within five years would now undergo an integrity test before completion.
Chairman of ECTDA, Josef Onoh made this disclosure even as the Nigeria Building and Roads Research Institute commenced investigation into last Friday’s collapse of a- three-story building located at Nweke Okuzu street, Ugbene II in Enugu East Council Area of the state.
Onoh stated that if such uncompleted building failed the integrity test, it will be demolished and appropriate sanction placed to forestall further occurrence of building collapse.
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Meanwhile, NBRRI investigating team led by Engr. Gerald Chukwuma, said that the agency was alerted about the collapsed building; hence they were dispatched from Abuja to come and take samples of the debris of the collapsed building so that tests would be conducted to find out what caused the collapse.
According to Chukwuma, the agency would need to carry out scientific-based research on the samples, after which they would determine the probable cause of the collapse, noting, however, that from the onsite and physical investigations they saw that some of the concretes were poor, same as reinforcement bars that they suspected were inappropriate, as well as poor supervision.
He said that generally there were steps to follow in construction to avert collapses such as soil testing, design approval by the appropriate authorities, and supervision to ensure compliance to design.
‘We are not an agency that assigns blames but we are independent investigators. We get information, get data on what causes building collapse and see how we can liaise with persons involved, give them reasons why such things happen and also in a round table find ways in which we can proffer solutions to avert such issues.’
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