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Emergency services ended the search for survivors of a building collapse that killed at least nine people in Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, as anger mounted against ramshackle property and homeowners scruples.
The building, which housed a primary school and a crèche, collapsed without warning in the lively area of Lagos Island on Wednesday morning.
Firefighters and other emergency services worked all night to find people still trapped. A body was found early in the morning, said the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema).
"We have reached the zero point," said Kehinde Adebayo, a spokesman for the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency. "The debris has been cleaned up.
"All the people trapped have been evacuated and the rescue operation is over," he told AFP. The final figures of the victims are still being compiled and will be announced later, he said.
Nema said that 37 people were saved alive.
Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode said the building was destined for demolition and a nursery school and a primary school were illegally operating on one of its floors.
Schoolbags, toys and clothes were part of the piles of rubble while a bulldozer was trying to fight his way through the wreckage.
A worker, Adeniyi Afolabi, who lives nearby, named the school as a kindergarten and primary school in Ohen and said 144 students were present on Wednesday.
Another local person, Zion Munachi, also confirmed the name and number of students. But both said that not all children were in school because of sports activities.
Chaotic scenes of heavy lifting equipment and ambulances attempting to fight their way through crowds and narrow streets gave way to anger on Thursday as locals demanded answers.
The island of Lagos is the historic heart of the city, which has about 20 million inhabitants, as well as its central business district.
Building collapses are common in the city and elsewhere in Nigeria, where building regulations are regularly flouted.
In September 2014, 116 people died, including 84 South Africans, when a six-story hotel collapsed in the church complex of the famous televangelist TB Joshua in Lagos.
An investigation revealed that additional floors had been added without planning permission. Engineers responsible for the construction are currently on trial for manslaughter.
In 2016, at least 60 people were killed when the roof collapsed in a church in Uyo city, in the south of the country.
Alani Fasiu Amusa, builder and surveyor of Lagos, said the "unscrupulous activities" of some developers and owners were to blame.
"Why would anyone convert a residential building into a school, for example? Most of the buildings in central Lagos are old and can not pbad the test of structural integrity, "he told AFP.
"They were built many years ago with substandard materials and without the participation of qualified building engineers … The government should strictly enforce its building codes and regulations."
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