Nairobi Building Collapse: 31 Reported Missing as Rescuers Search Eastleigh Rubble

Rescue teams in Nairobi are combing through a mountain of concrete and twisted steel after an 18-storey building under construction collapsed in the Eastleigh area on Friday afternoon. The Kenya Red Cross said on Saturday that it had recorded 31 missing-person cases linked to the collapse along 9th Street, while warning that the figure still needs verification.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said 67 construction workers were on site when the building came down, and 66 of them escaped largely unharmed, with one worker suffering non-life-threatening injuries. Officials had earlier feared that seven people were trapped inside 11 retail shops that had already begun operating on the building's lower levels. Nairobi Governor Sakaja Johnson said the shops had opened without an occupancy certificate, making their use illegal, and the National Construction Authority has identified the developer, architect and structural engineer as investigations begin.
The Red Cross said two people reported missing have already been reunited with their families, and a later update said 26 people previously reported missing had been traced and accounted for, with two injured people taken to Kenyatta National Hospital. Tracing teams caution that some workers reported missing may have left the site before the collapse. Rescuers have at times paused heavy excavators, fearing the machines could exhaust oxygen supplies for anyone still trapped in pockets beneath the debris. The search continues, and the disaster has renewed scrutiny of building safety enforcement in the Kenyan capital.
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