Abuja — Over 30 persons, mostly masons and food vendors were feared trapped inside an uncompleted three-storey building that collapsed yesterday morning at Asokoro, Abuja.

Our reporter saw a corpse being pulled out from the rubbles of the Amazing Grace Plaza, at around 12.30 pm. Eighteen workers were earlier rescued and rushed to the Asokoro General Hospital. Some of them gave their names as Awwalu, Shola, Muritala Abubakar, Dauda, Abubakar Musa and Rilwanu Garba

Asokoro Hospital sources said four are still unconscious while many who were brought in later were referred to Garki General Hospital because of lack of bed space.

One of the labourers, Abubakar Musa, said the workers noticed a crack on the staircase on Wednesday afternoon and complained to Yusuf, the site engineer, while another worker said the entire building looked like if it was tilting in one direction on that day and workers informed the same engineer, who ignored them and persuaded them to come the following day to continue with the work.

Head of the casting team, Adeyemi said that work was going on at the top floor, with about 38 workers and food vendors inside the building.

"Some of the workers, including the site engineer were eating on the ground floor, where the food vendors are stationed and the building craved in on them," he said.

Daily Trust learnt that some of the workers on the top floor jumped to safety. One of them, Olumide Adila said the building just began to collapse and he found himself also going down.

He said the site engineer invited them to undertake casting work, using six bags of sand to a bag of cement.

The Department of Development Control (DDC) Director, Yahaya Yusuf, said during an inspection visit by officials of DDC, soil tests were conducted on the site and the owner was immediately stopped from continuing with the building.

Yusuf said the building owner got a court injunction stopping the DDC from exercising their duties on the site until the case is determined.

Bystanders said serious work at the site started three hours after the incident when a Julius Berger crane appeared at 1 pm.