Rescue crews were combing through the wreckage of a collapsed 16-storey building in Nairobi on Friday, searching for seven people believed to be trapped, Kenya’s Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said.
Footage shared online showed the structure give way in seconds, releasing huge clouds of dust over Eastleigh, one of the capital’s most densely populated districts, where residential and commercial buildings stand close together.
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The building collapsed into a mound of debris as emergency teams arrived. Access was difficult because the site was tightly surrounded by other high-rise structures.
“Eleven shops on the ground floor and in the basement were occupied at the time of the collapse. Seven people have been reported missing,” Murkomen wrote late Friday on X.
He said 66 of the 67 people working at the construction site had escaped without injuries. One worker was hurt.
Police earlier said rescuers had pulled a woman from the rubble and could hear another person calling for assistance.
“The contractors and the engineers are supposed to ensure that the works are followed by professionals. But most are not,” Bibiye Mahmoud, president of the Institution of Engineering Technology of Kenya, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) at the scene.
“This is why we are seeing these catastrophes … There is no accountability,” she said.
Building safety standards
Kenya’s National Building Inspectorate reported that 87% of buildings audited across the country last year either failed to meet safety standards or did not have the necessary approvals.
“Our concern is to save lives,” Nairobi Gov. Johnson Sakaja told reporters. “This building has no occupation certificate … this has potentially cost lives.”
An occupation certificate is official authorization from the relevant authorities confirming that a building is safe and legally suitable for people to occupy.
John Ogallo, vice president of the Institution of Engineers of Kenya, was also at the scene and said the structure had shown possible warning signs before it fell.
“People here are saying distresses were observed, like cracks,” he told reporters.
When a building is put up using unsuitable materials, “it becomes a time bomb,” he said.
Nairobi is undergoing a construction boom, with high-rise projects expanding throughout the city. Eastleigh, a district known for its crowded markets and sizeable Somali community, has seen particularly rapid development.
Figures from the country’s statistics bureau show that the number of buildings completed in Nairobi increased from 20,025 in 2022 to 25,090 last year. The city is East Africa’s leading business hub and continues to draw residents from rural parts of Kenya and neighboring countries.
Looting reported
Local media reported that looting began soon after the collapse, which took place around lunchtime.
AFP journalists at the scene saw police fire tear gas to disperse crowds that had gathered nearby.
A Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis report recorded 86 building collapses in Nairobi between 2009 and 2019, with an estimated 200 deaths.
Corruption has enabled some contractors to cut corners and circumvent construction regulations.
Five people died in September 2022 when a six-storey building collapsed in a town on the outskirts of Nairobi.
In April 2016, 49 people were killed after a six-storey apartment building collapsed in the northeastern part of the capital. Days of heavy rain had triggered flooding and landslides.
