- Title: KENYA: Building collapse in Nairobi kills four, injures seventy
- Date: 24th January 2006
- Summary: TRACTOR CLEARING RUBBLE TO LET AMBULANCE THROUGH
- Embargoed: 8th February 2006 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kenya
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
- Reuters ID: LVAC0RZY58CUVBI5ODTHUWXFUUEQ
- Story Text: A building under construction collapsed in downtown
Nairobi on Monday (January 23), killing four people,
injuring at least 70 and trapping many others under mounds of heavy debris.
Rescue workers and passersby in the busy commercial
district dug frantically by hand through piles of concrete,
steel and wood to recover the dead or reach screaming victims.
Ambulances sped from the scene with the injured while
bulldozers and cranes worked to clear the wreckage,
surrounded by a crowd of hundreds of onlookers police struggled to control.
Kenya Red Cross Disaster Response Director Farid
Abdulkadir said there were four people confirmed dead. He
added that two people had been pulled out alive so far but
that others were trapped and calling for help.
A Reuters cameraman saw three dead bodies at the scene.
Another victim died after being brought to Kenyatta
National Hospital, where the majority of the injured were taken.
A hospital spokesman said so far about 70 injured
people had arrived.
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.
Kenyan police in a statement appealed to "members of
the public and private sector who are trained in rescue
operations to rush to the scene together with their machinery to assist."
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