No fewer than three children are among four individuals who have reportedly gone missing after a five-storey apartment block collapsed in the Kenyan capital last night, a local official revealed.
The cause of the accident in Uthiru, which is located to the northwest of the city centre, is not yet known according to Bramwel Simiyu, the Nairobi disaster management chief officer.
“As of 10:00 pm (1900 GMT), all the families except four persons have been accounted for,” Simiyu said in a statement.
“The four missing persons include a nanny and two children from one household, as well as a 10-year-old girl from another residence,” he said, adding that detailed investigations would begin on Wednesday.
The Kenya Red Cross, which sent emergency teams to the site, said 10 people had suffered minor injuries.
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The Nairobi area is one of the zones hardest hit by torrential rains and floods that have caused havoc across the country, claiming the lives of around 230 people and displacing more than 200,000.
In a related development, a rescue operation is currently ongoing in South Africa after a five-storey building under construction collapsed, leaving at least two people dead and another 53 trapped.
Officials in George, Western Cape province, report 22 people were rescued from the crash site and taken to hospital.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that a team of 75 crew were on the site when the building collapsed on Monday.
The cause of the incident in the coastal city is being investigated.
The building crumbled at 14:09 local time (12:09 GMT), Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said.
“Seventy-five members of construction crew have been confirmed on site at that time of the incident,” he added.
Emergency services were seen rushing to the scene to search for survivors in the city 450km (279 miles) east of Cape Town.