8 Dead, 37 Rescued in Nigeria School Collapse

LAGOS, Nigeria — The Latest on Nigeria building collapse (all times local):

8:45 p.m.

A Nigerian emergency official says eight people are dead in a collapsed school building and 37 people have been rescued alive.

The statement by National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye does not say how many of the dead or rescued are children.

Witnesses have said up to 100 children could have been in the primary school when the three-story building in Lagos collapsed.

Rescue efforts are expected to continue into the night as hundreds of anxious people watch an excavator work under floodlights.

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7:50 p.m.

An emergency official confirms deaths in the collapse of a three-story school building in Nigeria but refuses to give a toll as search and rescue efforts continue.

Witnesses have said as many as 100 children could have been inside the building.

Official Shina Tiamiyu says the emphasis is on finding survivors. Workers have pulled more than 40 people, dead and alive, from the ruins.

Signs of life remain as night falls hours after the collapse in Lagos. Rescue efforts are expected to continue throughout the night.

The watching crowd was jubilant when searchers found a man alive. An hour later, the crowd stilled when a body was carried by.

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7:15 p.m.

Night is falling at the site of a collapsed school building in Nigeria as search and rescue workers make frantic efforts to find what could be scores of children in the ruins.

The evening call to prayer has been heard as hundreds of anxious people watch in the heart of the country’s commercial capital, Lagos.

An emergency official has said more than 40 people have been found but it is not known how many are dead.

Workers have carried several dust-covered children, some moving and some still, to waiting ambulances.

Nigeria’s president says that “it touches one to lose precious lives in any kind of mishap, particularly those so young and tender.”

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5:45 p.m.

The general manager of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency says more than 40 people have been rescued from a Nigeria school building collapse.

Shina Tiamiyu tells the Associated Press that a death toll cannot yet be determined as rescue efforts continue.

Some witnesses estimated that as many as 100 children were in the primary school on the top floor of the building that collapsed in Lagos.

Rescue efforts are expected to go into the night as sunset nears.

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5 p.m.

Lagos governor Akinwunmi Ambode says at least 25 children have been rescued after a three-story school building collapsed in Nigeria.

It is not known how many students were in the primary school on the top floor, or how many have died.

The collapse occurred in the heart of Nigeria’s commercial capital, setting off frantic rescue efforts.

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4 p.m.

Witnesses say nearly two dozen children have been pulled from a collapsed building in Lagos, Nigeria.

It is not known how many students may have been at a primary school that was located on the top floor of the three-story building.

The school could have had as many as 100 children there at the time of the collapse.

It is not immediately known what caused the structure to collapse, leaving piles of dusty concrete slabs and exposed metal.

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2:25 p.m.

There are cheers as a small child is pulled from the ruins of a collapsed three-story building in Lagos, Nigeria. But the crowd quiets as another child is freed but does not move.

It is not yet clear how many children have been pulled from the rubble, and how many have survived. Scores were thought to be inside when the three-story building containing a school went down.

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1:35 p.m.

Rescue efforts are underway in Nigeria after a three-story building school building collapsed while classes were in session. Scores of children are thought to be inside.

Associated Press video from the scene on Wednesday shows at least one dust-covered child being carried out of the rubble. Onlookers crowd around in the densely populated neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.

They cheered as the child was lifted out.

Building collapses are all too common in Nigeria, where new construction often goes up without regulatory oversight.