NAIROBI, Kenya- Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen says 11 people believed to have been in shops on the basement and ground floors of the collapsed Eastleigh building are yet to be accounted for, as rescuers continue searching the site.
Murkomen said 67 workers were at the construction site when the multi-storey building came down on Friday.
One worker was injured, while the other 66 escaped unharmed.
The 11 people are believed to have been in businesses operating on the building’s lower floors. Their whereabouts had not been confirmed at the time of Murkomen’s update.
“We are hopeful they are safe,” he said.
The collapse occurred in Eastleigh, Nairobi, where the building was under construction.
The cause had not been established, and Murkomen said investigators would determine what led to the incident.
KDF and police join rescue operation
The Cabinet Secretary said the immediate priority was to reach anyone who might be trapped beneath the debris. The Kenya Defence Forces and police had been deployed to support the rescue effort.
“At the moment, our focus is to rescue those who are trapped in the rubble,” Murkomen said. “We are optimistic we can rescue these people alive.”
Rescue teams were working through the wreckage as authorities sought to establish whether anyone remained inside.
Murkomen did not give a timeline for the operation or provide further details on the condition of the injured worker.
He urged the public to avoid drawing conclusions about the building’s structural integrity before investigations are complete.
“At this point in time, we cannot pass any judgment on anything concerning the integrity of the building,” he said, adding that people might make guesses after watching video of the collapse.
Murkomen said the government would leave the cause of the collapse to investigators.
“We leave it to investigators to establish what caused the accident,” he said.
Calls for concern over building safety
The CS also called for wider concern about the safety of buildings, pointing to another collapse in Nairobi’s South C earlier this year.
“We must all of us be concerned about the integrity of our buildings,” he said.
His remarks come amid renewed attention on construction safety following the Eastleigh collapse.
The building fell in a busy commercial area, and reports from the scene indicated that its lower floors were occupied.
The cause of the collapse remains unknown.
The government has not announced findings on the building’s design, construction or inspection history.
Murkomen said those questions would be addressed through the investigation.
For now, the search is focused on locating the people still unaccounted for and confirming whether they are safe.
“We are optimistic we can rescue these people alive,” he said.
