By Onu Okorie
At least, one person was confirmed dead, while seven persons were feared trapped beneath the rubble, after a five-storey building, under construction, collapsed along Dr Peter Odili Road, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
The incident, which occurred on Wednesday, has triggered a major rescue operation that stretched into Thursday, involved Julius Berger Nigeria PLC, security agencies, Rivers State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development and other sympathisers.
The building collapse has equally sent shockwaves through the Rivers State capital as construction workers who had been on duty at the site were buried under tonnes of debris when the structure suddenly gave way.
A statement from Julius Begger media team said that eyewitnesses of the incident recounted harrowing scenes of labourers scrambling for safety as the building came crashing down without warning, leaving dust, concrete slabs, and twisted metal in its wake.
”There were workers inside and around the building when it just collapsed,” one eyewitness told our correspondent. People started running and screaming. It was chaos,” the statement read.
Early estimates indicated that at least seven persons were trapped beneath the rubble. Rescue efforts commenced immediately, with local residents, emergency responders, and security personnel working collaboratively to reach victims buried under the debris.
By Wednesday evening, three individuals had been pulled out alive from the wreckage, offering a glimmer of hope amid the tragedy. However, search operations continued through the night and into Thursday as rescuers pressed on to locate the remaining survivors.
The collapse came less than 24 hours after another building failure was recorded elsewhere in Port Harcourt, compounding anxieties over the state of construction safety standards in one of Nigeria’s most commercially active cities.
The back-to-back incidents have prompted renewed calls for urgent regulatory intervention.
Speaking on the sidelines of the operation, Julius Berger’s Regional Manager for South-South, Engr Rimon Marisho, explained the company’s motivation for intervening. He said that the company’s equipment is deplored for the rescue operation includes: excavators for debris removal, mobile cranes for lifting heavy concrete slabs, wheel loaders for clearing rubble, and dump trucks for ferrying debris away from the site.
Also cutting and breaking tools, among them hydraulic breakers and concrete cutters, were also brought in to carefully dismantle sections of the collapsed structure and access areas where survivors may still have been trapped.
To sustain round-the-clock operations, Julius Berger also provided lighting equipment and power generators, enabling rescue teams to maintain visibility and momentum through the night. Safety gear was supplied to personnel navigating the hazardous conditions on the ground.
The deployment of these resources was widely credited with significantly improving the pace and effectiveness of the rescue effort, allowing responders to reach pockets of the rubble that would otherwise have been inaccessible.
He said the firm’s involvement was driven by a deeply held conviction about its responsibility to the communities it operates in.
”At Julius Berger, we believe there are limitless opportunities for the company, the community, and the country to make tangible progress. This belief compels us to save lives and property by actively participating in rescue operations in collaboration with relevant stakeholders,” Marisho stated.
Other construction firms and government agencies also joined the coordinated response, working alongside Julius Berger to maximise the reach and impact of the operation.
Officials of the Rivers State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development were on the ground throughout Wednesday and Thursday, monitoring the situation and coordinating activities with security agencies, including the Nigeria Police Force.
Their presence was aimed at ensuring an organised and methodical response, while also gathering preliminary data ahead of what authorities have promised will be a thorough investigation into the cause of the collapse.
As of Thursday, the official cause of the structural failure had not been determined. Investigators are expected to examine whether the building met approved design specifications, whether the right quality of materials was used, and whether adequate supervision was in place during construction.
The twin collapses in Port Harcourt within 24 hours have once again cast a harsh spotlight on Nigeria’s construction industry, where building failures, often linked to substandard materials, poor supervision, and violations of approved building plans, continue to claim lives with troubling regularity.
Safety advocates and built environment professionals have long called for stricter enforcement of building codes, more rigorous pre-construction approvals, and unannounced site inspections to stem the tide of preventable disasters.
As rescue operations remained active on Thursday with Julius Berger and partner agencies maintaining their coordinated presence at the scene, families of the workers still unaccounted for gathered nearby, waiting anxiously for news. The recovery effort, responders said, would continue until every victim had been accounted for.