Check out what a deadly windstorm did to 400 houses in Lagos

No fewer than 400 buildings have been wrecked, while thousands of residents are rendered homeless, after a windstorm ravaged streets in Papa Ashafa/Dopemu in the Orile-Agege area of Lagos State.

The unfortunate incident happened around 4.30pm on Monday. It was gathered that cars parked on the roads were damaged as concrete electric poles fell on them in the gale that swept through 20 streets.

It was observed that private and public school buildings in the area were damaged. According to witnesses, some pupils of the schools escaped death by a whisker.

In fact, a church building on OpeOlu Street was uprooted and dumped on another building.

Many of the residents were sighted by our correspondent lamenting their losses and said they slept on the road with their children.

 Some of the affected streets include Abibatu, Opeifa, Fabowale, Kushoro, Opeolu, Bakare Opesha, Sura Ogunmakin, Igbayilola, Akintunde, Alafia, Sadiku, Ebun, Ayeni, Oyewole, Adewunmi Adebiyi, Oyewole Close, Oyewole Road and Alafia Close.

A resident on Opeolu Street, Bridget Isiaka, said she was feeding her baby when the incident happened.

She said, “I saw that something was moving the bed and my baby and I was wondering what was going on. When I saw the storm, I shouted for help. The roof was lifted up by the storm.”

A trader, Mrs. Balogun Labake, told PUNCH that the windstorm had destroyed all her property.

“I saw the thing rolling towards us with full force. It pulled the bed from underneath us. As we were about running away, the force blocked us from going out. It destroyed all our property and damaged the roofing sheets,” she said.

A resident on Abibatu Street, Mrs. Olayemi Olawode, said since she arrived in the area more than 20 years ago, she had never witnessed such disaster.

Olawode said although many houses on her street were affected, she was lucky that the storm only took away a few of her roofing sheets which she had replaced.

But the same was not true for Mrs. Nike Olusanaya, a civil servant resident on Okubanjo Street.

PUNCH on Tuesday saw that the disaster had rendered the mother of four children homeless as her single-room apartment was blown apart.

“We have nowhere to stay again. We have been carrying our loads around and begging people to house us. The windstorm threw the ceiling of our room far away. I slept outside with my kids,” she said.

Tragedy was averted on Opeolu after an Assembly of God Church structure atop a residential building was careened away to another building opposite it.

A tailor living in the house where the church was, Mr. Segun Toyin, said, “There were five of us around that time. My four friends, who were outside, suddenly ran into the shop and said there was an earthquake. A few minutes later, the wind took off the building.”

A lodger in the house where the church building landed, Ebenezer Omileke, said it was a hurricane that ravaged the area. He said the church structure first landed on the roof of their building, before the storm lifted it to the store behind the building.

The General Manager of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, said the state government had opened a relief camp to temporarily accommodate some of the residents.

He said, “The governor has directed that the relief camp at Igando be opened to those that are displaced. The camp is to provide an alternative, instead of sleeping outside.”