A landmark floating school that provided classes to children on a lagoon in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos, has collapsed during heavy rains, its headteacher said on Thursday. "The structure collapsed at around 10:00 am (0900 GMT) on Tuesday following a rainstorm," the school's director, Noah Shemede, told AFP.
Shemede and the Amsterdam-based architects NLE said there were no casualties and that the floating school in the Makoko area of the city had been empty since March this year. The headteacher said 58 students who were using the facility as an annexe had been relocated to the main school nearby because of concerns from parents about the effects of annual rains. Architect Kunle Adeyemi said the building was a prototype which had been used "intensively" over the last three years and a new building would be constructed to replace it.