At about 10:00 hours today 27th February, 2024, NEMA Owerri Operations Office was radioed to move to Onitsha to assist the South East Zonal Office in a search and rescue operation at a collapsed building site which is under construction.
The NEMA Head, Owerri Operations Office,, Mr Igwe Nnamdi Chukwudi with some officers were at Onitsha for a combined rescue operations with the NEMA South East Zonal Office, Enugu. As at the time of this report, 20 persons were rescued with varying degrees of injuries and 6 people confirmed dead. The injured persons have been taken to 5 different hospitals within the Onitsha metropolis. Search and rescue operation is still ongoing and the State government has deployed several earth moving equipment to the disaster scene to speed up the rescue operation.
Also present during the search and rescue operations are the Nigeria Red Cross, Anambra SEMA, COREN and Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON)