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Six people die as an unfinished eight-storey building collapses in Syokimau, on the edge of Nairobi
- What happened
- The top floor of an eight-storey building under construction gave way in Syokimau, near Nairobi, on Friday morning, killing six people.
- Why it matters
- It is Kenya’s second deadly building collapse in three weeks, after eight people died in Nairobi on 23 October, and it has revived calls for stricter oversight.
- What’s next
- Rescue teams are still searching the rubble, because it is not yet confirmed how many workers were on site.
How this story developed
- 16:10First report
- 16:112nd source
- 16:11Confirmed
- 16:10First reportSouth China Morning Post
- 16:112nd sourceAl Jazeera English
- 16:11LatestConfirmedWas: Single source
Full story
The collapse
Six people died on Friday morning when part of an unfinished eight-storey building collapsed in Syokimau, on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, the South China Morning Post and Al Jazeera reported. Construction workers were at the site when the uppermost concrete slab gave way, bringing down part of the structure, according to a preliminary report by Nairobi City County’s emergency team. The report did not establish why the slab failed.
“So far we have confirmed six bodies, but also five people have been rushed to Imara Daima Hospital.”
Duncan Ochieng, Kenya Police, South China Morning Post
Search for survivors
Duncan Ochieng is the assistant inspector general of police in charge of disaster management, and spoke to reporters at the scene. The Kenya Red Cross first reported that three people had been rescued and one was missing; television reports later said five people had been pulled alive from the rubble and taken to hospital, Al Jazeera said.
Accounts differ on how many people were at work. The South China Morning Post reported that 405 workers were on site, while the emergency team’s report said the number present when the building fell had not been confirmed, leaving open the possibility that others were trapped. Firefighters and specialist rescue teams were still searching for survivors.
Patrick Makau, the member of parliament for Mavoko, the constituency that includes Syokimau, urged rescue agencies on social media to act quickly and offered condolences to the victims’ families.
Calls for tighter rules
“Every second counts.”
Patrick Makau, Kenyan MP, Al Jazeera English
The accident follows a deadly building collapse in Nairobi on 23 October that killed eight people, and the two disasters have prompted calls for tougher oversight of construction sites. The South China Morning Post described it as the latest in a string of construction accidents in the country.
The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, a state research body, has named poor workmanship, inadequate supervision, substandard materials and faulty designs as wider causes of building collapses in Kenya, Al Jazeera reported.