Towards Automation of Building Integrity Tracking: Review of Building Collapse in Nigeria

Abstract

This study presents current efforts aimed at providing an updated record as it regards the impact of collapsed of building structures in Nigeria. Many of these building collapse incidences that have occurred between 1973 and 2022 were not properly analysed based on some certain factors such as the frequencies of occurrences and the number of causalities involved per decade, height of the structure that are normally affected, and the particular location(s) that this building collapse due frequently occurred. Therefore, this necessitated the need to carry out this comprehensive study to investigate the actual situation of collapsed buildings in Nigeria for the period under reviewed, based on the factors aforementioned. Information obtained from published journal article, academic research reports, newspapers, conference proceedings, were reviewed to generate the required data used for the analysis. The data collected above for the study were analysed using the statistical methods. The computation analysis was done with mat -lab and excel. The location of the collapse was obtained by using the Global Positioning System (GPS) to obtain the location of the collapse. The study reveals that one hundred and seventy- seven (177) are the recorded number of buildings that have collapsed in the period under reviewed. Over nine hundred and fifty- six (956) lives have been lost during the period. They also discovered that there was high rate of 3- storey building collapse during the period under review. The location distribution of the collapsed building shows a high rate in Lagos state, with ninety- three (93) (52.54%) of the reported cases. The study concludes by suggesting appropriate possible measures to avert the growing increment of building collapse in Nigeria. It also seeks to reduce the impact of building collapse incident through the implementation of the real-time wireless based building integrity monitoring and risk factor indicator system, so as to be able to monitor and analysed the integrity stability of such building structure, before it tends to collapse.