A multi-story building under construction collapsed Friday in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area, leaving many people feared trapped beneath a huge pile of rubble along a busy commercial street. The collapse happened at about 1 p.m., and the search for survivors was still unfolding hours later.
Issa Mohamud, Nairobi’s police chief, said the building had more than 10 upper floors under construction, a detail that underscored the scale of the failure and the danger facing anyone still inside. The Kenya Red Cross said its teams were on their way to the site as rescuers moved in with hard hats and began trying to reach the trapped.
What followed showed how quickly chaos can spread at a disaster scene. Police fired tear gas at people who had begun looting neighboring shops while responders were trying to reach the rubble, forcing rescuers to work through confusion as they searched for signs of life.
Rescuers later used poles stripped from trees to poke through the debris, and one excavator arrived and started moving concrete bound with steel away from the wreckage. Residents said some trapped loved ones had made phone calls calling for help immediately after the collapse, but those phones later became unreachable.
The collapse added to a pattern that has made building failures a recurring problem in Nairobi. County officials responsible for issuing building permits have been accused of failing to carry out adequate inspections, and the risk is sharpened when construction continues above ground-level and basement shops that are still in use. For now, the most urgent question is how many people were inside when the structure gave way, and whether the teams on scene can reach them before the rubble settles further.
