Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja says KDF personnel, sniffer dogs and other emergency responders have joined the rescue operation at a collapsed building in Eastleigh, Nairobi.
Sakaja said rescuers were clearing debris using excavators and breakers to remove large pieces of rubble before moving further into the rescue operation.
“Right now, it's for us to save lives, and so we're clearing the debris. Equipment has already been mobilised, excavators and breakers, so that we can be able to remove the big boulders,” he said.
He said the multi-agency operation involved KDF, the National Disaster Operations Centre (NDOC), the county government and the Kenya Red Cross, with health workers on standby.
Sakaja said some people inside the collapsed building had been communicating with rescuers, who were working to open up spaces to allow oxygen in and assess what further action was needed.
“The people who've been communicating from inside, they've been talking. Of course, we are opening up a space so that there's oxygen, and then we can get the proper estimates of what else needs to be done,” he said.
He appealed to members of the public to give rescue teams room to work and said the county hoped to clear the debris as quickly as possible.
He called for counties to regain prosecutorial powers to handle building-related offences, saying the penalties imposed in some cases were too low to deter violations.
He added that the building had no occupation certificate and said there were no temporary occupation certificates for those on the ground floor.
Sakaja said some violations attracted fines as low as Sh5,000, which he argued did not discourage developers from continuing with illegal practices.
“This has cost lives, you know, potentially. We hope that there's no life lost, we pray,” he said.
The cause of the collapse had not been confirmed as rescue efforts continued.
