Synagogue building felled by controlled demolition -Police

The Homicide Department of the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Lagos, has submitted that the Synagogue six-storey building could have been felled by a techique termed controlled demolition.

According to the SCID, controlled demolition is when a building is felled using chemical or electronic device.

The position of the SCID was given by the Head, Homicide Investigation and Crime Scene Management at Panti, DSP Olusola Agoyi.

Agoyi testified on Wednesday at the resumed sitting of the coroner, Magistrate O.A. Komolafe, probing the cause of the September 12 tragedy.

The accident claimed no fewer than 116 lives.

Agoyi, in his testimony, said the speed and the rate at which the Synagogue building caved in, coupled with some dust-like smoke that followed were peculiar elements seen only in a building felled by controlled demolition.

He said, “My Lord, when you use chemical or electronic device to bring down a building, it is controlled demolition.

“I found out from the CCTV that the rate and the speed of the fall of the building within seconds was just like that of a controlled demolition.

“Aside that, the CCTV 3 captured some dust-like smoke coming out of the collapsed building.”

Further lending weight to his claim, Agoyi referred the coroner to the oral account of one of the 34 survivors that he said were interviewed in the course of his intelligent findings.

“The panel also interviewed one Taiwo Temitayo Taiwo, aged 28 years, one of the surviving victims of the collapsed building and I quote, ‘Immediately the building was coming down, what I saw or heard was like a thunderous lightning accompanied with a sound, hitting the wall as if someone was using a saw to cut an iron, then the house collapsed,'” Agoyi submitted.