Seven-Storey Building Collapses in Kenya
A seven-storey building in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi collapsed on Monday night, leaving dozens of people trapped under the rubble and several others missing.
The collapse, which occurred in one of the biggest slums Nairobi, Mukuru Kwa Reuben, was not entirely unexpected. Residents were anticipating the collapse after huge cracks started to appear along the structure on Monday. They then alerted the police and other authorities, who, after inspection, ordered the residents to evacuate the building.
While most people had been evacuated by the time the building collapsed, there were others who were trapped in the building. Rescue efforts to save those trapped under the rubble started on Tuesday and is ongoing.
According to Kenyan officials, some residents refused to evacuate, believing that the building would not actually collapse.
One resident told reporters that her neighbour on the sixth floor had refused to evacuate when asked to do so by the police.
“She was in the house with her two children and we don’t know where they are now or whether they are alive,” she told reporters.
Police have said that, thus far, 128 residents have been accounted for, but that they are not sure exactly how many people were living in the building.
Pius Masai, the Deputy Director for Kenya’s National Disaster Management Unit, said that rescue workers managed to pull a woman and two children from the rubble late on Tuesday afternoon.
“All have been stabilised and evacuated to hospital… for further treatment [sic],” he said.
This is the latest controversy concerning unregulated buildings to hit the Kenyan government. There have been other issues in the past where the government failed to honour their promise to demolish unstable and unregulated buildings and replace these with new buildings.
Angry residents told reporters that the government never follow through with their promises.
“Every time they tell us they are demolishing substandard houses. They demolish one or two and move on. We never get to hear from them until a tragedy like this occurs” said one resident of the slum who lives close to the collapsed building.
Nairobi County Governor Evans Kidero, said that the building was constructed without official approval in 2007.
“It was one of the buildings that was marked for demolition, but because of issues of security we had not demolished it,” he said.
It is still unclear if there have been any fatalities after the collapse.
Image: Collapsed building in Nairobi [online image] (2017) sourced on 14 June 2017 at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/world/africa/kenya-nairobi-building-collapse.html?_r=0
