Kano | Thursday
ELEVEN boys aged 3 to 11 died and 21 were injured on Wednesday when the wall of a mud-built Quranic school in the ancient northern Nigerian city of Kano collapsed, authorities said.
The wall was apparently weakened after heavy overnight rain and fell into an open yard being used by the pupils at the Sheik Muktar Islamiyya school in the city’s walled Kofar Na’isa district shortly before 10:00 am.
An AFP correspondent was shown the site of the accident late on Wednesday, lit by the flickering yellow lights of paraffin lamps. Most of the collapsed building remained where it fell. The area is one of the oldest inhabited areas of Kano, an ancient walled city reputed to be more than 1 000 years old.
The school is reputed to be hundreds of years old.
”My nephew was killed,” said university student Abdulkadir Abdullahi. ”I took him to the school this morning. Nobody had expected this. We have many problems in Africa but we do not have earthquakes and we are not used to buildings collapsing,” he said.
Late on Wednesday, dozens of well-wishers crowded into the area to sympathise with grieving families, apparently oblivious to the threat that other buildings might collapse.
Most buildings in the picturesque walled off area of the city are built with a mixture of mud and sticks, and vulnerable to collapse, experts here said on Wednesday.