Three people have been killed after five-storey building collapsed in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi early Sunday.
According to Pius Masai Mwachi of the National Disaster Management Unit one person was found dead in the debris while another died on the way to the hospital. Three others are in hospital.
Mr Mwachi says a rescue operation is going on in the densely populated Huruma Ngei neighbourhood.
He said a body was pulled from the rubble and another person who was rescued alive later died.
Mr Mwachi says many of the tenants of the building left when it developed cracks shortly before midnight on Saturday. The number of building’s occupants has not been established, he added.
Tenants in the nearby buildings have been evacuated after rescuers declared the area a dangerous zone.
Nairobi, where 4 million live in low-income areas or slums, has had a history of buildings collapsing.
In 2016, President Kenyatta ordered an audit that would cover several areas of the capital city and the report concluded that buildings collapsed because of poor quality of concrete, lack of proper foundation and use of substandard building stones.
In a city that housing is in high demand, unscrupulous developers often bypass building regulations in order to make more money from unsuspecting Kenyans.
