KENYA: Building collapse in Nairobi kills 6, injures 70; search for survivors and victims continues into the night

Record ID: 216520

  • Title: KENYA: Building collapse in Nairobi kills 6, injures 70; search for survivors and victims continues into the night
  • Date: 24th January 2006
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE)(Kiswahili) UNNAMED KENYAN MAN SAYING: "We saw the building shaking and the people around it started to run. It's only later that we began to try to rescue those who were trapped inside."
  • Embargoed: 8th February 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVABHLPTHUMV3DUM1LOF8DBS00H4
  • Story Text: A building under construction collapsed in Nairobi on Monday (January 23, 2006), killing six people, injuring at least 70 and trapping scores more under mounds of heavy debris.
    Rescue workers and passers-by in the busy commercial district dug frantically with their bare hands through piles of concrete, steel and wood to recover the dead or reach screaming victims.
    Onlookers cheered each time a victim was pulled free as bulldozers and cranes worked to clear the wreckage of the six-story building.
    A police spokesman said the death toll had reached six and was expected to rise.
    Rescue workers said they could hear the faint screams and shouts of those trapped underneath. Most were builders taking a lunchtime break, while some of the injured included the women selling them porridge, maize and beans. A Reuters cameraman saw three dead bodies at the scene. "We saw the building shaking and the people around it started to run," an eyewitness told Reuters.
    "It's only later that we began to try to rescue those who were trapped inside."
    As night fell, floodlights were set up to allow the search for survivors to continue. In what appeared to be a freak accident, a bus lost control and crashed into a group of rescue workers, injuring two.
    Police asked "members of the public and private sector who are trained in rescue operations to rush to the scene together with their machinery to assist."
    The authorities also appealed for people to donate blood. There was no immediate word on the cause of the collapse. Construction workers had been adding more floors when the building fell, and a Reuters reporter said some of the concrete was still wet.
    People injured in the collapse were being rushed to the country's largest public hospital - Kenyatta National Hospital, with two so far confirmed dead on arrival. Medical staff are on high alert as ambulances and army cars brought the casualties to hospital.
    Medical Supplies and personnel have had to be sourced from other hospitals and medical facilities to deal with the inflow of patients since early afternoon when the building collapsed, but hospital officials say they were coping.
    Minister of Health, Charity Ngilu visited the hospital to see how they were coping and she made an official statement.
    "Several patients have been admitted here in the hospital. So far the hospital has admitted 60 patients and two of them have died. We have two children who have been admitted," she said after assessing the situation at the hospital.
    Doctors say the number of injured is over seventy.
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