Nine people were killed on the spot when the wall separating the slum from a mosque collapsed after Monday night’s heavy rains/MIKE KARIUKI
Speaking to reporters at the scene, Starehe Member of Parliament Maina Kamanda described the incident as unfortunate and urged the county officials to take urgent measures to demolish the wall.
“The County Government should come and inspect this whole wall and see whether it was put up in line with the set laws and regulations. If it was not build according to the set standards, it should be demolished and if another one is being built, it should be stable,” he said.
Nine people were killed on the spot when the wall separating the slum from a mosque collapsed after Monday night’s heavy rains.
Bodies of two other people were recovered after they were washed away by floods in Buru Buru and Dagoretti, bringing the number of people killed in Nairobi to eleven.
Kamanda assured families of the victims of his support.
“We together with other leaders will take responsibility to take care of their funeral and transportation costs and will assist the families of those who have been affected by this incident,” he stated.
Makadara OCPD Nehemiah Langat says the wall collapsed on a shop where a number of people were sheltering from the downpour when the incident took place.
He stated that six women and four men were pulled out of the rubbles in an operation which went on late at night but was resumed at dawn.
“The wall collapsed around 2000hrs in South B Fuata Nyayo slums. The first response team arrived at 2030hrs and by 2.00am we had retrieved seven bodies that is three ladies, two juveniles and two men,” he stated.
Langat says of those injured, four have already been discharged while four more are still admitted in different hospitals across the city.
“The injuries by then were seven. We had to call off the operation at two because of the rain but resumed this morning. Today we managed to receive two more bodies both of whom were ladies and we took them to the city mortuary,” he stated.
Flash floods in the country has claimed lives with the latest being in Narok where a river burst its banks rendering the road to Bomet from Narok impassable with the inaccessibility delaying emergency services response times.
The flooding in Narok followed a heavy downpour which left large parts of that region flooded and added to the thousands left homeless by flooding in Nyanza; a humanitarian crisis that had the Kisumu county government asking the national government for assistance to contain the situation.
Kisumu Governor Jack Ranguma told reporters on Tuesday that he had written to the Cabinet Secretary Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Water and Natural Resources asking for help to de-silt the rivers experiencing overflow due to the torrential rains that pounded the region.
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