Two people have died while six others are nursing injuries after a building they were constructing at Stage Mpya estate in Embakasi caved down on Wednesday.
The building collapsed at about 11:50 am on Wednesday according to the assistant director of the National Disaster Management Unit Pius Maasai.
There were 8 masons hired to demolish a timber structure on the said plot at the time of the accident.
Out if the six who sustained injuries, one of them is in a critical condition.
“Out of the six we can confirm one is in critical condition but the others are stable and out of danger,” Maasai said as quoted by the Star.
He added the owner of the building is still at large. “The said owner is now at large but relevant authorities are investigating.”
Witnesses said they heard loud cries and they quickly went to the scene and helped those trapped in the rubble.
“We heard cries from the site minutes to midday. We retrieved two bodies and transported them in a pick-up. One group was on the ground floor and the other on the first floor,” recounted a witness only identified as Henry.
Residents of the area helped in the rescue operation before KDF disaster management unit arrived at the scene.
Cases of houses collapsing in the city have been on the rise since last year.
In June 2017, a seven-storey building that collapsed at Kware area of Nairobi collapsed and left four dead.
Following the incident, National Construction Authority (NCA) released a list of 204 houses within Nairobi that should be demolished as they are unsafe for residency.
Out of the 204 condemned houses in Nairobi, 58 of these houses are in Huruma estate.
The others are spread across Dagoretti, Umoja, Zimmerman, Pipeline, Embakasi, Thika Road and South B.