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3-story building collapses in Nigeria with children inside

The school building collapsed while classes were in session.
Photo by: AP In this image taken from video rescue workers and emergency teams work at the scene of a building collapse in Lagos, Nigeria, Wednesday March 13, 2019. There was no immediate official word on numbers of casualties. (AP Photo)

Frantic rescue efforts were underway in Nigeria on Wednesday after a three-story school building collapsed while classes were in session, with scores of children thought to be inside.

Associated Press video from the scene showed a dust-covered child being carried out of the rubble, to cheers. But another child was pulled out and slung over a rescuer's shoulder, limp and dangling.

Onlookers crowded around in the densely populated neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital and a city of some 20 million people.

Hundreds of people stood in narrow streets and on rooftops of rusted, corrugated metal. A yellow excavator scooped at the ruins.

Sani Datti, a spokesman with Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency, told The Associated Press that officials from the agency and other emergency services were at the site.

"For now we don't have any word on casualties as we are still busy with rescue work," he said.

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