Kenyan building collapse near Nairobi kills six people

The collapse of an unfinished eight-storey building in Kenya has killed six people.

The structure fell on Friday morning in Syokimau on the outskirts of Nairobi. Coming on the heels of a similar recent incident in the capital, the accident has revived calls for stronger safety oversight.

Construction workers were reportedly at the site when the building’s uppermost concrete slab gave way, bringing down part of the structure, according to a preliminary report from Nairobi City County’s emergency team. The report did not establish why the slab failed.

The Kenya Red Cross initially reported that three people had been rescued and one person was reported missing. TV reports later said that five people had been pulled alive from the rubble and taken to hospital.

The emergency report said the number of workers present when the building fell had not been confirmed, leaving open the possibility that others were trapped.

Firefighters and specialist rescue teams were continuing to search for survivors.

Patrick Makau, a member of Kenya’s parliament representing Mavoko, the constituency that includes Syokimau, urged rescue agencies in a post on social media to act quickly.

“Every second counts,” he wrote, offering condolences to the victims’ families.

The accident follows a similar deadly building collapse in the city on October 23, which killed eight people. The twin disasters have prompted calls for tougher construction oversight.

The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, a state research body, has identified poor workmanship, inadequate supervision, substandard materials and faulty designs as wider causes of building collapses.