The excavators have not stopped since Friday lunchtime in Eastleigh. In this crowded Nairobi neighbourhood, home to a large Somali community and to thousands of traders who work its streets every day, a building under construction folded in on itself at around 1 p.m., leaving behind a mound of concrete only a few metres high. As of Saturday, 24 October, seven people remain missing.
How tall was the building? Accounts differ. Some outlets reported eighteen floors, while authorities put the figure closer to fifteen. What is not in doubt is that the structure was far from empty. Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen confirmed that eleven shops on the ground floor and in the basement were trading when it gave way. Those shops are almost certainly where the seven missing people were. All 67 workers on the construction site have been accounted for, and one woman was pulled alive from the debris within hours.
Rescue teams are moving carefully. Police fear a second collapse, since what remains of the structure is leaning against a neighbouring building whose own stability has yet to be assessed. Crowds of onlookers made the work harder still: officers fired tear gas several times to push them back, and looting was reported shortly after the disaster. A tent has been set up where families can report missing relatives, and the Kenya Red Cross can also be reached on 1199.
Attention quickly turned to who is to blame. Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja acknowledged that the county had issued construction approval, but stressed that the building had no occupation certificate. In other words, nobody should have been inside. He has promised legal action and called for tougher penalties against developers who disregard approved plans. Police have launched a manhunt for the owner, while the National Construction Authority says it has identified the developer, the contractor and the professionals registered to the project. According to the state broadcaster KBC, an application for a fifteen-storey building with a basement had in fact never been approved.
For Nairobi, this is a painfully familiar story. A study by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis counted 86 building collapses in the capital between 2009 and 2019, killing around 200 people. The city is expanding at breakneck speed, and shoddy workmanship and disregard for building rules are repeatedly blamed. The investigation now under way, led by national and county agencies, will have to determine whether Eastleigh was the result of a technical failure, negligence, or oversight that existed only on paper.