Douala Building Collapse: The Unravelling Of A Tragedy

Government has launched an investigation to determine the exact circumstances leading to the collapse of a four-storey building in Douala on Sunday, which left nearly 40 dead and injuring dozens others. The block caved in and fell onto another smaller residential building in the Mobile Guiness neighbourhood in Douala V Sub-Division in the Littoral region. Rescue workers, assisted by security forces, have spent hours digging the wreckage to see if more bodies could be recovered. The firefighting brigade joined the Red Cross and other rescue services in searching for survivors trapped under the rubble. The incident comes hard on the heels of a warning issued by the National Observatory on Climate Change about the risks of floods and landslides in some parts of the country including several neighbourhoods in Douala.

Housing Minister Visits Site, Victims

The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Célestine Ketcha Courtès, visited the site of the collapsed building on Monday, July 24. Mrs Courtès also chaired a crisis meeting attended by municipal and administrative authorities. It filtered from the meeting that the building that collapsed had no permit and was constructed in flagrant violation of urban-planning norms.

The Minister also paid a visit to the Deido District and the Laquintinie hospitals where some survivors were being taken care of. “I share the pain of the families who lost loved ones in the collapse of a four storey-building in Douala,” Courtès later wrote on Twitter. She extended her “deepest condolences” to the affected families and also wished the injured a speedy recovery.

“A commission will be set up to take stock of the situation, identify responsibilities and a set of measures that will prevent such accidents from occurring in the future,” she said.

While noting the catastrophe is “one…too many”, the Minister expressed hope that this “should no longer happen in our beautiful city if the rules of urban planning are respected.” “I thank our teams of firefighters who worked tirelessly to mitigate the extent of the damage and save lives.”

During the crisis meeting, the first deputy mayor of the city of Douala said many inhabitants do not respect construction rules set by government. He said campaigns to map out the different neighbourhoods in the area have been launched. A minute of silence was also observed in memory of those who died in the incident.

Meanwhile, the Douala City Council says 40 “unsafe” houses constructed in neighbourhoods like Cité Sicam, IPA, Bepanda, and Makepe Missoke will be demolished in the days ahead to avert another eventuality.

Governor Champions Relief Efforts

In a press release issued a day after the incident, the Governor of the Littoral region, Samuel Dieudonné Ivaha Diboua said the building collapse had plunged the entire city of Douala into a state of “stupefying turmoil”. Following various alerts made by local residents, the Chief Executive explained, administrative authorities swung into action by mobilising teams of firefighters, police and gendarmerie, the council police and health personnel to carry out relief efforts.

“The first operations consisted of cordoning off the surroundings of the building; clearing the rubble on the road with machinery from the Urban Council, military engineering unit and the waste management company, HYSACAM, etc,” Ivaha Diboua said.

 He said as at Monday, July 24, the number of victims totaled 58; that is, 37 dead and 21 injured. “A crisis management unit was created, supported by a psycho-social assistance and a communication unit,” the Governor wrote.

Similarly a commission of inquiry is hard at work to determine the real causes of this disaster. “Instructions were made to the municipalities to: carry out a vast census campaign of buildings in danger of ruin; set up within the town halls a system for collecting denunciations from the population; the intensification of control campaigns and the installation of seals on irregular constructions; and the establishment of an intersectoral working group charged with proposing strategies to municipalities aimed at better handling of uncivil behavior in the field of construction,” he wrote.

Another Building Collapse Kills Four In Ngaoundere

A woman, her two children, and her younger sister died in Ngaoundere on Tuesday, July 25 after an uncompleted four-storey building in which they were living collapsed onto many other houses. Rescue operations were launched to rescue more people suspected to have been trapped beneath. The Governor of the Adamawa region, Kildadi Taguieke Boukar, rushed to the scene to supervise the rescue operations. He also visited the bereaved family and transmitted government’s condolences.