Nairobi ‘condemned’ building collapse kills seven

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Rescue workers raced on Saturday to save more residents trapped in the rubble of a six-storey Nairobi building that had been condemned by the authorities and collapsed overnight after days of heavy rain. Seven people were confirmed dead.

President Uhuru Kenyatta visited the site of Friday’s disaster and ordered the arrest of the owners.

“We are still hearing some voices from the collapsed building,” Kenya National Disaster Operation Centre director Colonel Nathan Kigotho, told reporters at the scene. “We don’t have the exact number of people buried in the rubble.”

The building in a poor suburb of Huruma in eastern Nairobi had 198 rooms, Kigotho said, adding some residents escaped before the collapse on Friday night and 133 people were rescued.

The president told officials “to undertake an immediate survey of all the houses in the area to find out those which are at risk of collapsing,” his office said in a statement.

Kigotho said two of the seven people known to have been killed were adults and the five others were children.

“The biggest cause of this was that the building was next to the river. The water most likely undermined the foundation,” he said.

Police said more than 120 people had been taken to hospital.

Residents cheered overnight as one casualty was hauled alive from the broken masonry, others clapped on Saturday morning as the president walked through a muddy street at the scene.

Lower floors of the building crumpled, leaving some of the top storey almost intact. Broken bed frames, mattresses and clothes protruded from the wreckage.

“It is raining, and these houses were built without Nairobi County authorisation,” Jonathan Mueke, deputy governor of Nairobi County, told privately-owned QTV station.

“I am asking residents in the area to leave. In the area where this one collapsed there are 189 houses,” he said.

South Africa Today Africa – East Africa Kenya News