The death toll of the collapsed building in Huruma has hit 21, as families continue to agonise over their missing loved ones. At least 65 people were still unaccounted for by last night. Rescue workers combed through the rubble using heavy machinery amid reports that more people were still trapped inside the ill-fated building.
An estimated 71 survivors were taken to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) for treatment, with rescue workers indicating that they had so far pulled 135 people from the rubble. According to the hospital’s acting CEO Dr Kennedy Koech, 58 people with minor injuries were treated and discharged while 12 who suffered limb fractures were still being treated.
“One who suffered multiple injuries died on Saturday evening but we expect the ones who are still admitted will undergo further treatment before being discharged,” said Dr Koech. The CEO also said that none of the admitted patients was in a critical condition.
“We are now planning the next course of treatment for the remaining patients especially for those with fractured limbs. But they are out of danger,” added Dr Koech. Rescue efforts were hampered by proximity of the collapsed building to a river, thus blocking access to the site. Rescue workers complained that they were unable to move equipment to some parts of the scene to help with heavy lifting.
Desperate family members flocked the Huruma Social Hall to inquire about the whereabouts of their next of kin. In one of the halls, rescued families slept on mattresses on the floor, as children played seemingly oblivious of the dire situation. A man who has not seen his wife since the incident says he does not know what to do but sit in the Hall and hope for a miracle.
“I do not know where to start as I have nothing left and no one to turn to. All I can do is sit and wait,” he told reporters. Next to him, Naomi Apiyo has a visibly black eye from a blood clot after rubble fell on her. “I was out buying vegetables at the kiosk behind the building when what felt like a truck hit my face. I blacked out,” she says.
Well-wishers also came to drop off food and other essentials while curious onlookers flocked the gate, arguing with National Youth Service officers who were barring them from entering. There was also a long queue of people filling forms with their details and those of the missing.
One of the residents, Jael Atieno entertained the crowd outside, perhaps in an effort to push away the sense of unknown that riddled the faces of those waiting with anxiety. “We are forced to stay here despite the danger because right now I do not have anywhere to go despite the fact that all my things are outside,” she says.
The situation was one that many in the related to, since the urgency to find a new home required money, of which they had none. The lucky few, such as Eric said he rented a house in the ill-fated building because that was what he could afford. “I was born and bred here and we have watched buildings built here in a hurried manner,” he says.
Atieno cautioned the county government to ensure that the buildings that do not meet the standards are demolished. A tenant, Jacob Okello, said the building collapsed so fast that there was not time run to safety. The caretaker, he says, had not informed them that the National Construction Authority had marked their building for demolition on account of its construction on riparian land and lack of structural integrity.
“I first had concerns about its safety that very night when I got home at about 8pm and heard my neighbours wonder at cracks forming on the walls,” he said. Erastus Otieno had only shared the one-roomed flat with a fellow student for three months but he had heard rumours the building had been declared unsuitable for habitation, only there hadn’t been a way for him to know for certain as, he learnt later, his landlord had the ‘X’ marks painted over.
Besides, he admits, at Sh4, 000 a month, the rent – especially when split between two – was all a student could afford. And for Okello, a welder who shared the room with his wife and three children, the cost could have been much, much higher had his family not been out of the house. “They had gone to the shops,” he says.
The post Death toll of collapsed house now rises to 21 appeared first on Mediamax Network Limited.