Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on October 28, 2014

The Lagos State Chief forensic pathologist, Prof. John Obafunwa, has said his team would submit the DNA analysis report of the 116 persons that died in the September 12 Synagogue building collapse.

Obafunwa stated this on Tuesday while presenting his teams preliminary report to the coroner probing the cause of the accident.

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 Synagogue Church of All Nations, Mr. Anthony Vanderbyl, who lost his wife in the accident, has pleaded for the timely release of the body.

Vanderbyl told the court 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.

Read more:

Synagogue: Pathologists conclude DNA analysis in two weeks

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