The Lagos State Chief Forensic
Pathologist, Prof. John Obafunwa, has said that his team would conclude
the DNA analysis of the 116 persons that died in the September 12
Synagogue building collapse in “two weeks time.”
Obafunwa
stated this on Tuesday while
presenting his team’s preliminary report
to the coroner probing the cause of the collapse of a guest house within
the premises of the Synagogue Church of All Nations in the Ikotun-Egbe
area of Lagos.
The pathologist, who
put the mortality figure at 116, said his team was still awaiting the
fingerprint reports and lodgers’ list to conclude their job.
He
reported that the autopsy, conducted by a team of pathologists and
dental surgeons, revealed that the victims died of crush injuries called
“traumatic rhabdomyolysis”.
Obafunwa
said, “The bodies were not charred but were compromised by heat. In the
case of a building collapse, the temperature would naturally rise,
thereby causing decomposition to set in.
“Most
of the 116 bodies that were received by our team of pathologists were
already decomposing, considering the amount of time spent in
confinement, due to the heat and tropical nature of the environment.
“The
bodies had to be embalmed immediately to arrest any further
decomposition. The bodies were mutilated, some had head injuries,
fractured bones and ribs and some even had dangling limbs that were
attached to the body by thin strips of skin.”
Meanwhile,
a South African citizen and a member of the SCOAN, Mr. Anthony
Vanderbyl, who lost his wife to the Synagogue building collapse, has
pleaded for the timely release of the body.
Vanderbyl
told the coroner on Tuesday that his entire family had been further
anguished due to the delay in the release of the corpse. He therefore
asked for the specific date when the corpse would be released.
He
said, “My entire family is in anguish because the body of my wife, the
mother of my children, lies in the mortuary. We need to see her, to feel
a certain amount of closure.
“We are
asking for a specific day when her body can be released to us, so that
we can take her back to South Africa. Please remove whatever obstacles
preventing us, we can’t take it anymore.”
In
response, the Coroner, Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe, assured Vanderbyl
that the body would be released but that there was “need to follow the
international standard best practices in the collection and analysis of
DNA samples in order not to be misinformed.”
Obafunwa also told the coroner that his team was close to the end of their work.
“We
are working closely with the South African Department of Health. They
are assisting us with reference samples and I know that we are moving
closer to the end of the process,” he said.
The
South African High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Louis Mnguni, said
samples were still being analysed at the laboratory in Cape Town, South
Africa.
The matter has been adjourned till Wednesday (today).
Source:Punch Newspaper
No comments:
Post a Comment