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Cameroon: Storey Building Collapses

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The
Post (Buea)

27 August 2007
Posted
to the web 27 August 2007

Edwin Nfor

A storey building situated behind the Great Soppo market in
Buea, Southwest Province, crumbled at about 6:30 pm on Sunday, August 19, as
rehabilitation work on it was in progress.

The Post gathered that the lowest floor was recently rented
out to King Solomon Secondary School, which is supposed to go operational from
September 3.

Subsequently, the 36-room edifice had to be fixed before the
start of the academic year.It was learned that the technicians hired to
rehabilitate the building had started plastering it on Thursday, August 16, and
were sure to finish before September 1.

In the course of their work, they said they noticed some
abnormalities in the building which they pointed out to the caretaker. Then as
fate would have it, on Sunday, at about 5:30 pm, the workers ran short of water
and had to stop work.

It was about 45 minutes later that they saw the building
collapsing. A closer look at the crumbled block - two floors and owned by a
former Senior Divisional Officer, SDO, for Fako, Robert Ngambi Dikome, indicated
that it sank under the weight of some ten years of neglect and battering from
the torrential Buea rains.

The iron rods used to reinforce the concrete pillars and
beams, as they could be seen, were too thin for the purpose. There also seemed
to be more sand in the concrete mixture than cement.

According to one of the technicians at the site, Jerome
Gemoh, they had noticed that the foundation was not solid enough and the mixture
had been poorly done.

Gemoh also said the pillars of the building were not well
placed and most parts did not have pillars as supposed. "In fact, I blame the
contractors who started the work," Gemoh retorted.

He also remarked that his greatest thanks go to God who
spared about 20 of them working at the construction site. "It is God who caused
water to stop flowing for us to stop work and leave the building," he said.

For his part, one of the proprietors of King Solomon
Secondary School, Vincent Ndip, said he had a sleepless night on Sunday after
hearing about the incident.

He said he thought about how he had strolled in the building
the day before. "Only God has saved us from this scandal," he said, adding,
"people's children would have been killed in this place."

Workers on collapsed building site counting their luck

Ndip also recalled that he had told the caretaker that the
building was going to collapse because of cracks that were seen on the wall.The
building, The Post gathered, was originally meant to be a single floor bungalow.
The owner later decided to transform it into a hotel.

This was done without any re-enforcements on the foundation
and the pillars. All this, in addition to the fact that the unroofed structure
had been soaked by rain, were likely the cause of the collapse.

Buea Council Reacts

According to an employee of the Works Service at Buea Rural
Council, Emmanuel Elinge, the council only approves buildings as presented to it
by the Southwest Provincial Service of Architecture.

As to why the council marks off houses with the red-lettered
order, "See Mayor", Elinge said such houses don't have permits to be built,
usually obtained from the council as recommended by the Provincial Service of
Architecture.

To him, there is nowhere that people cannot put up storey
buildings so far as there is a solid and deep foundation, and a good
mixture.

A worker at the Southwest Provincial Service of Surveys,
Stone Ewome, told The Post that putting up a good and lasting structure begins
with going to the Delegation of Town Planning with the dimension of the land and
a site plan of the building.

At the service, a Town Planning Certificate, specifying how
to fit the structure into that particular plot would be issued.For his part, a
technician at the Southwest Provincial Service of Architecture, whose only name
The Post got as Tanifor, said their duty is solely to recommend structures for
the Mayor's approval.

As to why he thought buildings collapse, Tanifor remarked
that their foundations are usually not solid and people never care to solicit
the duties of registered structural engineers.

He also reiterated the fact that people in high offices
usually bypass important services because no one would ask them why, not
realising the aftermath.

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"I don't know if Mr. Ngambi ever sought counsel from an
architect," Tanifor said, "and if I look through my files, I doubt if I will
find that building plan."

Other sources contacted by The Post maintained that most
people who construct buildings these days have no respect for the
pre-construction formalities put in place.

"Consider the lives that would have been lost if the workers
were in the building or if students had started school," someone remarked.

Copyright © 2007 The
Post. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the
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