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KADUNA POLYTECHNIC

DEPARTMENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION

SCIENCE REPORTING AND TECHNOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT QUESTION: WRITE ON BUILDING

COLLAPSE

PREPARED BY
GROUP 8
S/N0 NAME REG. NUMBER SIGNATURE
1 HOSEA PARAH 18/37618
2 USMAN TASI’U 18/31236
3 AISHA MUHAMMAD BELLO 18/39008
4 OLUSANJO TEMITOPE 18/33268
5 SUNDAY ALIWO OCHOCHE 18/34196
6 MERCY PETER NKOM 18/33620
7 MIRABLE IGONI B. 18/37904
8 CHIKA PEACE OGAMBA 18/36942
9 AMINA MUHAMMAD JAMIU 18/32568

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BUILDING COLLAPSE

Construction of a building is a human endeavor and thus it is subject to error. Due

to this, some buildings are destined to fail. The activities of unskilled craftsmen in

the building industry have smeared the image of the building profession in the

recent past. Buildings do not just collapse all of a sudden there are warning signs

before they do.

Not less than 200 lives were lost and 252 persons injured in different cases of

building collapse across Nigeria between 2009 and 2019 a period of 10 years. The

cases with causes ranging from substandard materials poor supervision, structural

failures, unqualified professionals handling the projects, faulty design, negligence,

incompetence, faulty construction, foundation failures, extraordinary loads and

corruption, coupled with illegal approvals.

Research findings have shown that the frequencies of the incidences were not

based on height of the structures and geopolitical zones. The results also show that

the leading cause of building collapse within the period was mainly structural

defect.

The highest rate of collapse occurred in 2014 while 2016 had highest number of

lives lost. It was also noted that the rate of collapse was predominant in the south

west which recorded 34 collapses (60.71 % of the total incidents during the period
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under review) and 132 lives lost (64.08% of the number lives lost during the period

under review). The highest casualty recorded was at Gimbiya Street Abuja in

August 2010 when a 4-storey uncompleted building claimed 23 lives, while the

highest incident recorded 50 injured as a result of substandard materials used.

It was recommended that the SON (Standard Organization of Nigeria) should

ensure that only certified building materials are allowed in the market, soil tests

conducted, Environmental Impact Analysis and structural analysis should be

mandatory and proper supervision of construction works by competent

professionals should be ensured.

An image of a building collapse.

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According to Engineer Ben Adejoh a lecturer in Kaduna Polytechnic civil

engineering department building collapse is caused by poor quality control,

structural failure and workmanship. Poor workmanship entails when one wants to

erect any structure without taking cognizance of the earth, the soil such as the soil

type, property of the soil geotechnical to know the parameter that is required so

that the structural engineer can design the structure. When this is not put to

consideration the building will have a problem. Therefore, if the building is not

properly design it will likely collapse. The Structural failure does not only entail

only building but include roads, Dam Bridge and many more. Building collapse

occurs as a result of poor quality control and workmanship when the basic things

are not done. When we talk about quality control we mean that each stage of

construction and each element has its specification. When you are building a 3

bedroom flat or a bungalow, the approach for erecting it is different from the

structural drawing of a 3-storey building, so also with 10-storey building the

approach differs from when you want to erect 1-storey building because the

structural load differs and will want to determine the bearing capacity.

For instance a business man who has no idea about building will just decide to take

some laborers and bricklayer to build for him or her because you have money and

to minimize cost and at the end when the building develop fault as a result of

structural failure.

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However, elastic cracking, temperature and shrinkage problems, detailing and

drafting problems, errors in assumed loading, changes and alterations in existing

buildings, all contributing substantially to building structural failures, disasters and

may finally lead to building collapse. Foundation problems: Foundation is one of

the major structural members of any building and any problem arising from it will

surely affect the whole building.

Engineer Adejoh added that the crushing and collapse of concrete footing or other

foundation members are usually due to unequal settlements which may be caused

by changing sub-grade condition or by wrong assumptions in the design,

inadequate or unequal support for foundations, soil and ground water movements

as well as expanding soils.

He said, the most common form of abuse of foundation occurs due to abnormal

loading situations especially in structures being converted to new use or having

additional floors. Natural occurrence: One of the major natural factors that result in

building collapse is rainfall; others may include temperature, pressure, etc. “When

there is a heavy downpour of rain, there is a possibility that one or more buildings

(completed or uncompleted) somewhere, would carve in”.

The fact remains that this is a natural factor that cannot be stopped, buildings

therefore need to be constructed adequately bearing in mind such uncontrollable

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factors. Quality management: The need for stringent quality control in material

utilization within the construction industry in Nigeria today cannot be

overemphasized.

The neglect of quality control in the construction industry has resulted in many

defective and ugly looking buildings and the rise in number of collapse buildings

in the past years. A number of factors influence the quality achieved in the

Nigerian building industry.

Material and Testing Variability: This has to do with the difficulties that

contractors experience in consistently obtaining and/or producing good quality

materials as well as the ability of the client’s representative to understand the

correct control values or make the necessary computation in the field.

He goes further in explaining the inability of manufactures to make products of the

same sizes and specified quality at all times. More so, there is difficulty of the

client’s representative in producing or interpreting field test results. It is often that

many of them present on the field are usually no more than clerk of works put

there by the architect to record the daily operations. Contractors’ Variability: This

is the difficulty a client or his representative experiences on large-scale projects in

having all the contractors produce uniform standards of materials and

workmanship. Different contractor shave their different means of production in

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terms of method of construction, technology involved, etc. Poorly Skilled

Workmen: This sometimes in conjunction with contractors’ variability is one of the

reasons behind the incidents of building collapse in Nigeria. The level of

competencies of different categories of labor in Nigerian building industry (though

varies from one city and contractor to another)

Engineer Sulaiman Yaqub attributed building collapse to bad quality of

construction materials used by most construction companies. This will lead to bad

construction. the use of standard blocks from blocks factories, investigation reveal

that 1 bag of cement is used to produce/mold 40-45 numbers of 225mm(9inch)

blocks without adequate supervision, contractors can engage on sharp practices.

Eng. Yaqub said another reason for building collapse is natural disaster; Fire

reduces steel yield strengths, causes concrete to undergo chemical changes that

weakens it, causes masonry to spall/crack and will consume wood materials…all

of which can result in collapse, development of sink holes (manmade or naturals)

can also cause a building collapse.

Lack of maintenance will lead to things like not noticing a problem before it

becomes catastrophic. Owners of buildings are irresponsible and have no concern

for the condition of their building. Old buildings are left in dilapidated conditions

and are never repaired. Even when structural cracks begin to appear, portions of

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inner slabs had begun collapsing, no actions are taken, the owners apparently do

not make any effort at getting them repaired, resulting in eventual collapse.

Poor communication between the various professionals involved, e. g, engineers

involved in conceptual design and those involved in the supervision of execution

of work and also Poor communication between the fabricators and the erectors;

Bad workmanship, which is often the result of failure to communicate the design

decisions to the persons, involved in executing them.

Engineer Sulaiman further said compromises on professional ethics and failure to

appreciate the responsibility of the profession to the community at large could also

result in catastrophic failures and lack of appropriate professional design and

construction experience, especially when novel structures are needed.

According to Architect Adams Ibrahim a chief lecturer in the department of

architecture, Kaduna Polytechnic stated that building collapse has a lot of

specification, it might be on the side of engineer, architect or the supervising

consultant. In most cases when a building collapses, you set up a panel to

investigate to know where the fault is coming from and to know what went wrong,

you cannot say that the fault is from the engineer, architect or consultant. After

investigation, you can know and come out with investigations that may be from the

materials specification or by the consultant (architectural engineer were not used

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by the contractor or someone somewhere cutting corners to make sure that the

materials specification is not used but use something close to it, not the same

quality as being specified. All these can lead to building collapse.

Secondly, this issue of Quacks who are not qualified in the building industry but

are there building whereas the professional are sidelined, for instance has the

money, most cases these clients are not educated and if they are, they don’t know

exactly the values of the professionals in the building industries. They believe they

can just call anybody who has been in building business for years but he has not

got the knowledge that is required either to design, or to supervise, but because the

client is not ready to use his money to get best quality or the best services. The

building owners run away because they don’t want to pay the actual fees to the

professional. They believe they can use anybody. That is one of the factors causing

building collapses.

Furthermore, the approval body that we have like Kaduna State Urban Planning

Development Agency (KASUPDA), there are professionals such as Electrical

Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Quantity Surveyors and Architects. Anytime

you take a design to them, all these people mentioned have to go through it to

make sure that what you are submitting is perfect before they can give you

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approval. But in Nigeria, it can be by-passed for as long as your money talks for

you.

Moreover we have bodies like the building society, architects, engineers, who

should make sure they see whatever is coming to the approval body. If possible,

they should also check the site and when the structure is on-going to see if they

abide by what was approved. The contractor on the other hand, goes into building

construction because he wants to make money. For him to make profit, he decides

to do one or two things because money is everything, and when you tell him to use

specific number of material he does not comply because he wants to maximize

profit. In a situation whereby an individual has a site to erect structures, the first

thing to do is to take an architect to the site to take the soil sample of that place to

know the bearing capacity of the soil for the structure but it is not always done but

lay foundation as they like and it collapses within two years. Building construction

needs adequate and constant supervision by the professional, not just anybody. The

structural engineer must be there when the building is being constructed. Architect,

quantity surveyor must be there also to make sure that the bill of quantity that is

set, contractors abide by its specifications, where a particular material is specified

and it is not available, they should go where they can get it to be as strong as the

one being specified in order to stop building collapse. The contractors, quantity

surveyors, engineers, architects, the approval authorities and the owners of the

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building have a part to play, but most importantly is the architect, professionals,

engineers, all of whom must put hands together to avoid building collapse.

Adequate foundations can be costly and as such, they can cost up to half of the

price of a building.

Anthony Ede Professor of civil engineering of Covenant University in Ota,

Nigeria. He says two (2) things should be considered when you are building the

foundations- the solidity of the soil developers and the heaviness of the building

and its content.

According to the acting workshop manager building collapse is caused by many

factors in Nigeria. For instance, substandard materials, bricks of blocks, a bag of

cement is used to produce 25/26 of 9inch block while 6inches is supposed to be

28per bag, while people are producing 55/60 per bag.

Another factor is the workmanship, he might be contracted to be mixing concretes,

brick layers, while brick layers will be doing the work of a contractor and also

doing the work of a carpenter.

The weather situation or climate and others affect time to do the work. The time

taken may be 3-4weeks but, within a week, the building has been constructed, it

can affect the building in some years because substandard materials don’t have

precepts of construction.
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The most common reason for an attached and self-supported deck to collapse is

when the contractor only provided nails between the deck ledger and the structure

of the house, resulting in the deck pulling away. Structural engineers make

mistakes (everyone does), but in small firms, a lack of multiple people checking

design can lead to bad calculations and structural failures.

Complexity of codes and specifications leading to misinterpretation and

misapplication, unwarranted belief in calculations and in specified extreme loads

and properties; compressed design and/or construction time, inadequate

preparation and review of contract and shop drawing, poor training of field

inspectors.

Too many people on a balcony or deck are common reasons for collapse of such

structures or when the occupancy of areas is changed without an evaluation. Older

structures (1960s-1980s) fire retardant, treated wood, roof assemblies made with

cheap ammonium phosphate are prone to collapse after 25yearsas the materials are

not strong enough to withhold the load are being used says the Engineer from the

African Organization for Standardization whose organization met last month in

Nairobi to discuss why so many African buildings collapse.

While in many locations around the world, building collapse had been caused by

terrorist attacks, leak explosions, earthquakes, and global environment changes

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(World Bank) 2015, in Africa and in many developing countries, they have been

attributed to weak foundations, substandard constructional materials…

Mr. Ede further mentioned that a building collapses when load is beyond the

strength of the building, even if the foundations and the materials are strong

enough for what they were originally built for, that purpose may be changed. The

structure is not strong enough to support the load and hence fails when it reaches a

critical stress level. The structure may be weak due to its shape, size, color, or

choice of its materials, it all points to construction, the strength of the building

should be tested. “The law says you must test “it’s the enforcement of the law that

is the problem. Even when workers are given the right materials to make the

concrete, they mix them incorrectly says Mr. Ede. This results in concrete which is

not the sufficient strength to hold the load. He also accused developers of cutting

cost by employing unskilled workers who are cheaper than trained builders.

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Collapse Records Based on Geo-Political Zones

The records of collapse based on the geopolitical regions in Nigeria are shown
below. It shows the summary of each geopolitical zone with the number of
collapses. From the graph, highest number of collapses is recorded in the south
west region of the country.

12

10

FREQ
8 2
4
6
6 8
10
12
4 14

Collapse Records Based on Height of Building.

The record of collapse based on the height of building is shown below. From the
graph, it revealed that there is high rate of 3-storey building collapse in the last
decade.

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40

35

30
40
25
35
30
20 20
15
15 10
5
10 0

0
NORTH NORTH NORTH SOUTH SOUTH SOUTH
CENTRAL EAST WEST EAST SOUTH WEST

Collapse Records Based on Causes of Collapse.

The record of collapse based on the causes of collapse in Nigeria is shown in
below. From the graph, the major cause of collapse in the last decade is structural
defect.
18
16 0
14 2
12 4
10 6
8 8
6 10
4 12
2 14
0 16
18
AL N E N CT AL G LS N E N AL N R SS N CE
ERI ISIO NAG TIO EFE ON DIN RIA TIO AG TIO OV SIO POO CE TIO AN 19
I C D SI A D C R O A
AT RV A U OA TE G OL RU PPR VE N PR IBR TEN 20
M PE DR STR RAL FES ERL MA ESTI T A N W V IN
RD R SU NO ON TU PRO OV ITY INV O NS AL CO DO TION A 21
A C UC D L L L
C LEG A VY L I M
D O Y A R G O F 22
A N PO ST STR LIFIE QU NIC
A IL LLE HEA M O
ST HA R P OO I DE CK 23
B A O C H LA
SU QU PO THE 24
UN O 25
GE
NO

Collapse Record Based on Year

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It shows the summaries of building collapse and casualties involved in the last

decade (2009-2019). From the graph, year 2014 recorded the highest number of

collapse and more lives were lost in 2016 with a total loss of 35 people.

40

35

30
frequency
25 0
5
10
20
15
20
15 25
30
10 35

0
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

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Abdulsalam President of Civil Engineering student, said during An interview

session stated there are many reasons why building collapse, on his view; poor

foundation design contributes to building collapse because when the foundation is

not designed wells there’s a tendency or most likely the building will collapse.

Secondly, the structural members such as brim, columns and the slap if they are

not being designed well according to the British standard, the building will surely

collapse and also when the engineer is a quark that is not a registered engineer or

lay man designing a structure the building will also collapse.

Engineer Philip Abubakar a structural engineer responded giving suggestions and

solutions by stating the following measures to be followed in order to avoid such

catastrophic instances “The structural designs prepared by the engineer appointed

by a builder must be crossed-checked by another structural engineer appointed by

the municipal corporation, the municipal corporation may hire external structural

consultants for the purpose. This will prevent faulty structural designs that may

result in building failure. The site execution of construction work, especially with

respect to RCC, work must be supervised by an external licensed supervising

engineer appointed by Municipal Corporation. Soil investigation report of the site

must be made mandatory and must be conducted by a reputed institute or a

laboratory. This will reduce the risk of building collapse by foundation failure. The

final copies of design and drawings must be given to the owners of the building for

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safe keeping which will become useful when any structural repairs are to be done

in future. Any structural repairs work or addition of new floors must be done only

after consulting structural engineers. For buildings which are old and are showing

signs of deterioration, immediate health check must be carried out and proper

repairs must be implemented after consulting a structural engineer.

However, We Should Ensure that whatever structure we are erecting should be

handled by professionals, quality control test should be done such as the building

material that are going to be used in the structure. All other element should be

conducted and guided by the basic institution that is used in construction such as

edge coat and cutting quality.

CHALLENGES FACED DURING THE COURSE OF RESEARCH

At the course of the research study, TIME was a big challenge to us followed by

FINANCE. There was DIFFICULTIES IN UNDERSTANDING SCIENTIFIC

TERMINOLOGIES and to get Equipment was also a challenge encountered;

INAPPROPRIATE RESPONSE from both respondents ( individual & the

authorities in charge), we equally had Little or no experience in reporting science

and had the Challenge of booking appointment with the scientist (that is in terms of

interview).

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REFERENCES

Adebayo, S.O (2000): Improving Building Techniques “Proceedings of Workshops

on Building Collapse: Causes, Prevention and Remedies. The Nigerian Institute of
Builders, Lagos State.

Arayela, O and Adam J.J (2001): Building Disasters and Failures in Nigeria.
Causes and Remedies. Journal of the Association of Architectural Educators in
Nigeria (ARCHES). Vol. 1 No. 6 Sept. 2001.

Ayedun, C.A, Durodola, O.D and Akinjare, O.A (2012): An Empirical

Ascertainment of the Causes of Building Failure and Collapse in Nigeria.
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. Vol. 3 (1). January, 2012.

Ede, A. N (2010a) Structural Stability in Nigeria and Worsening Environmental

Disorder: The way forward. The West African Built Environment Conference
Research Conference, Accra, Ghana, July, 76-78, PP. 489-498.

Ikpo, I.Y (1998): Application of Weibull Distribution Technique in the Prediction

(MTBF) of Building Component. Nigerian Journal of Constructions Technology
and Management. Vol 1 No 1.P 79-87

Madu, L.C (2005): Journal of Nigeria Institute of Architects (N.I.A) Architecture:

research & Practice Vol. 1. No. 3 November 2005. ISSN 1597-2947. PP.

Mohammed, L.Y (2011): An Overview into Procedures of Disputes Resolution in

Construction Industry. Journal of Environmental Research and Policies Vol. 6.

No.3 2011.

International Journal of Civil Engineering, Construction and Estate Management

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Vol.3, No.4, pp.41-49, October 2015_Published by European Centre for Research

Training and Development UK (www.eajournals.org) 49 ISSN 2055-6578(Print),
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Mohammed, S.M (2004): Appraisal of Sancrete Blocks As walling Unit in Nigeria.

Environmental Watch Journal. Federal Polythenic, Bida Vol. 1. No. 1 PP. 251-257

Olagunju, R.E (2002). Fire Safety Problems in the Tropics. A study of the
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Olagunju, R.E, Aremu, S.C and Ogundele, J (2013): Incessant Collapse of

Buildings in Nigeria: An Architects view. Journal of Civil and Environmental
Research. ISSN 2224- 5790 and ISSN 2225-0514 (Online) Vol. 3 No 4, 2013.

Oloyode, S.A Omogun, C.B and Akinjare, O.A (2010): Tracking Causes of
Building Collapse in Nigeria. Journal of Sustainable Development Vol. 3. No. 3
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Quora.Com, Jason Roof, M.E Structural Engineering, University of South Carolina

(2011).

Quora.Com Manoj Aggarwal, Digital Marketing /Content Manager.

Sanjay Choudhry, Entrepreneur and Student of Pranayama March 24, 2016.

Sarvish Khanna, M.S. Structural Engineering, Arizona State University. April 15,
2016

https://asanduff.blogspot.com

https://www.bbc.com

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https://www.efficacyconstruction.com

https://www.propertypro.ng (PDF) Causes of Building Collapse in Nigeria.

(PropertyPro Insider) Blog

https://www.researchgate.net (PDF) Causes of Building Collapse and Prevention in

Nigeria.

https://www.researchgate.net (PDF) Causes of Building Failure and Collapse in

Nigeria. (Professionals View): 1 Mansur Hamma-adama, 2 Tahar Kouider. Scott
Sutherland

www.bbc.com

www.eajournals.org

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