Kenya’s building tragedies 

Two persons were killed Thursday in Kenya when a multi-story building under construction collapsed, the second such tragedy in less than a week. 

How did the building collapse? 

There’s been a suspicion of negligence on the part of the developers. “Mum and Dad were inside the house when the building started collapsing, then collapsed on them. When the ambulance came to rescue them they found them already dead and the construction was not fully completed”, one of the victims lamented. 

Unhabitable structure 

Three other people were rescued alive from the family home that was next to the collapsed building located in the Ruaka suburb. “This is not the first story or rather instance. In the course of this one week, we have had two buildings that have collapsed. We have lost innocent lives”, resident Willy Kamau lamented. This did not just start though. Similar collapses in the country in 2015 led to an order by the presidency for an audit of Kenya’s buildings. The National Construction Authority found that 58% of the buildings in the capital, Nairobi, were unfit for habitation. 

“Last month we had a woman and her children that were buried; innocent they were also the same case. They were not in the building, but a building near their house collapsed and the mother and the children just died like that. So we are asking if this is the work of the county government it is not even the national government. The approvals, the drawings, and everything is the work of the county government”, Kamau added.