Two dozen rescued from Abuja building collapse

Emergency agencies in Nigeria say 24 people have been rescued from a collapsed building in Abuja and three people have died after suffering fatal injuries.

The three-story structure with a basement was under construction when it came down on Thursday morning trapping an unidentified number of people, many of them workers.

The building is believed to have been planned for a commercial complex in Gwarinpa, a sprawling residential suburb of the Nigerian capital.

A combined team of emergency and security agencies, including some construction companies with heavy-duty equipment, were mobilized to the scene of the incident and worked overnight digging through the rubble to try to save people trapped in the collapsed building.

Abbas Idris, head of the Federal Capital Territory’s Emergency Agency in Abuja, told the BBC that it had been a battle to rescue the people and that the building was poor quality: "We discovered that a lot of corners have been cut, there are substandard materials used in this construction."