29. 2019 Lagos School Collapse, Nigeria
Built: 2010s
Collapsed: 2019
Est. Damages: $50,000-$120,000*
One headline-making tragedy in 2019 was the Lagos Building Collapse. In March of 2019, a three-story schoolhouse in Lagos, Nigeria collapsed, killing twenty people and trapping more than forty others. The school’s collapse got significant coverage from both local and international media outlets.
2019 Lagos School Collapse, Nigeria @emmyloaded / Pinterest.com
The Lagos Island governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, said that investigators discovered that the collapse was caused by people illegally occupying the building. The building was coded as a residence, but they were hosting classes in there and overloading the structure’s capacity. Luckily, the death toll was lower than it should have been, as many students were out of school that day because they were attending a sporting event.