‘Instead of escaping, two-week-old bride tried to save her phone – and she died’

The relatively uneventful Agindigbi area of Lagos state experienced a mudslide on Tuesday, leading to the collapse of a building, which killed one of the three victims.

According to the Lagos state emergency management agency (LASEMA), two of the trapped victims were rescued while the third, whose identity was simply given as Hadiza, died.

A neighbour who witnessed the tragedy told TheCable that Hadiza recently got married to Umar, an ice-cream seller, and the couple relocated to Lagos from Kaduna less than a month ago.

“As we came back, one of our children, whose room is down there as well, noticed that his room was leaking and he raised the alarm,” said the neighbour, who identified himself as Abass.

“Before we knew it, everything started falling from up. We all ran out and we shouted at Hadiza to come out but she ran back inside, saying she forgot her phone and she wanted to get it.

“Only the top half of her body got out, as a rock fell on her — a very big rock.”

The site of the mudslide is a wet land and a buffer zone, which is ordinarily not habitable for human settlement.

After the tragedy, Michael Akindele, general manager of LASEMA, recalled that the state government had been warning people living in flood-prone and wet lands to vacate such areas to prevent loss of lives, particularly with the return of the rains.