A tower still under construction came crashing down in Nairobi on Friday afternoon, burying part of a crowded street in Eastleigh beneath concrete and dust. The Kenya Red Cross said the collapse happened at about 1.40 pm on 9th Street, in a packed residential and trading district that is the heart of the city’s Somali community. Footage shared online shows the structure folding in on itself and a thick grey cloud rolling over neighbouring blocks.
How many people were caught inside remained uncertain into the evening. The county governor’s office said only the ground floor was in use, though shops reportedly operated in the basement and construction crews were working higher up. Reports of its height varied widely, from just over ten storeys to as many as 18. One young resident told AFP that a lot of the labourers had gone to Friday prayers at the mosque, which may have spared lives.
Red Cross teams and excavators began clearing debris, and one woman was pulled out alive and taken to hospital. Police later said cries heard from another person under the slabs had fallen silent. The operation was hampered when looters raided nearby shops and officers fired tear gas to push back the crowd. Governor Johnson Sakaja urged onlookers to give the rescuers room to work.
No cause has been given yet. Nairobi is in the middle of a construction frenzy, and county officials are regularly accused of signing off on permits without proper inspections. Between 2009 and 2019, according to a Kenyan public policy institute, 86 structures came down across the country, with an estimated 200 deaths, and a national audit of nearly 15,000 buildings rated almost three in four of them unsafe.
