Young father hospitalised after Ogle structure collapses

Mar 07, 2018 News

…businessman contracted plumber to build house

Up to late yesterday afternoon, family members of a 23-year-old father of one were praying for the best, after the house he was working on in Ogle, East Coast Demerara, collapsed on him.
Agaffi Obermuller of Lot 15 Ogle, and three other young men were working on the house for some three months now.
Information reaching Kaieteur News suggests that the structural integrity of the building was compromised due to the shoddy works which were done in the preliminary stages of the construction.
Yesterday, a man who identified himself as Kevin, admitted to this publication that he is nothing more than plumber and that he was contracted by the owner of a lumber yard to build the concrete structure. The name of the lumber yard dealer was provided.
Yesterday residents in Ogle said that they were in their homes and yards when they heard a loud explosion and when they investigated, they realized that a large section of the concrete structure which was moments before standing tall, was flat on the ground, pinning the young father under a concrete beam.

Pinned, now critical in hospital: Agaffi Obermuller

The collapsed building.

The young man lives across the road from where the construction was going on.
After residents went to the location, they came together and lifted the concrete beam which was partly pinning the young man to the ground by his head; he was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
One woman said that when she heard the noise, she thought that a truck had arrived at the location with building materials as has been the case recently since construction started.
Kaieteur News understands that prior to the commencement of construction at the location, the land on which the building was being built was literally a swamp.
Residents said that they had always expressed concern with respect to if the necessary building codes and guidelines were being followed in the process, as they observed the building was going up at a very rapid pace.
“Everyone was saying that they put up this house too fast! No house you cannot build the foundation and then move to laying blocks and putting up columns right away, you have to leave the foundation to cure a bit,” the sister of the injured man explained.
The young lady could not say what her brother’s injures were, but indicated that he appeared to have suffered no “very serious” injuries based on what her father would have communicated to her.
Residents say it was only on Sunday that the workers commenced putting on the roof of the building. It is believed that due to the weak structural foundation of the building, the weight of the roof might have been responsible for the collapse yesterday.
One resident said that based on what she observed, the steel which was used in the erecting of the columns did not appear to be of the required measurement for the size of the columns and the building.
The plumber who was functioning as the contractor to build the house could be overheard referring to someone on the other end of the phone as ‘boss’. He was describing the magnitude of damage of the structure and was also suggesting to the ‘boss’ that they work as soon as possible to convert the structure to a flat building.
All of this was taking place moments after the house collapsed on the worker and while the “plumber-building contractor” and his “boss” kept the police and the local NDC in the dark with respect to the development.
When this publication approached the “plumber-building contractor” for the number of the person he was communicating with on the phone he provided same.
When contacted, the man sought to deny that any building that he is associated with collapsed on anyone. When he was informed that a reporter from this publication was at the location and would have also secured his number from his “contractor” the man immediately disconnected the call.