KENYA: At least 75 bodies recovered from Kenya slum fire

Record ID: 361780

  • Title: KENYA: At least 75 bodies recovered from Kenya slum fire
  • Date: 13th September 2011
  • Summary: ONLOOKERS RED CROSS OFFICIALS CARRYING BODY BAGS CONTAINS CHARRED REMAINS
  • Embargoed: 28th September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya, Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Disasters
  • Reuters ID: LVA8C8Y6XOHE20NL8XSFTPADX5XA
  • Story Text: At least 75 bodies have been recovered after petrol that had spilled into an open sewer caught fire and sent a wave of flame through a densely populated slum in the Kenyan capital on Monday (September 12).
    Kenyan media said more than 100 people were burnt to death and a similar number were taken to hospital. Police said it was proving difficult to establish the exact number of dead among the charred remains.
    Residents said petrol spilled from a fuel depot owned by the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) and ran into a sewage dyke that runs under the slum, known as Sinai. The petrol ignited, causing an inferno.
    Police spokesman Charles Owino said the fire was started by a cigarette butt tossed onto the dyke, which opens into a small river. Authorities said they were battling the fire in an area estimated to be just over an acre Children in school uniform ran in all directions, badly burnt slum dwellers staggered in a daze and the smell of smoke and burning flesh filled the air.
    Sinai resident Sospeter Ndeke said some of the slum's dwellers were killed while trying to scoop up the fuel from the burst pipe and from the sewer. Many had hoped to sell the petrol on the black market.
    "There was a lot of smoke and there were people around that area who were fetching petroleum remains then they inhaled the smoke and they collapsed when those around there inhaled it, then smoke turned into fire and all around there including houses were burnt," said Sinai resident Spospeter Ndeke.
    Red Cross officials were retrieving and indentifying charred remains from the site as onlookers stood hopelessly by.
    Abandoned jerry cans littered the scene where dozens of fire trucks and ambulances tried to make their way through the crowd.
    Firefighters scrambled across the corrugated rooftops of burning shacks to spray foam on petrol that flowed down muddy alleyways.
    Residents have in the past refused to move despite repeated warnings, saying they had nowhere else to go to. About 120 people died when a crowd scrabbling for free fuel crowded round a tanker that crashed near the Rift Valley town of Molo in January 2009.
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