Building collapse kills 6, injures 70

NAIROBI - A building under construction has collapsed in Nairobi, killing six people, injuring at least 70 and trapping scores more under mounds of heavy debris.

Rescue workers and passers-by in the busy commercial district dug frantically with their bare hands through piles of concrete, steel and wood to recover the dead or reach screaming victims.

Onlookers cheered each time a victim was pulled free as bulldozers and cranes worked to clear the wreckage of the six-story building.

"So far the death toll is six, but it is rising slowly, police spokesman Jasper Ombati said.

Rescue workers said they could hear the faint screams and shouts of those trapped underneath. Most were builders taking a lunchtime break, while some of the injured included the women selling them porridge, maize and beans.

Firemen used long hoses to deliver water to survivors trapped under huge slabs of concrete.

A Reuters cameraman saw three dead bodies at the scene.

"So far three people have died at the hospital and we have treated 73, out of which 18 have been admitted," said Herman Wabobwa, spokesman for the Kenyatta National Hospital. "Their injuries range from multiple broken limbs to internal injuries."

As night fell, floodlights were set up to allow the search for survivors to continue. In what appeared to be a freak accident, a bus lost control and crashed into a group of rescue workers, injuring two.

As tempers flared, police clashed with thousands of onlookers they said were getting in the way of the rescue operations. Clad in riot gear, they whipped and beat pedestrians to drive them away as some threw rocks in retaliation.

Police asked "members of the public and private sector who are trained in rescue operations to rush to the scene together with their machinery to assist."

The authorities also appealed for people to donate blood.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the collapse. Construction workers had been adding more floors when the building fell, and a Reuters reporter said some of the concrete was still wet.

"We were working and then I felt a tremor, like the one we felt the last time, and then the building just fell," said construction worker Patrick Otiyo, referring to a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that struck East Africa in December.

Housing Minister Soita Shitanda said more needed to be done to ensure that high-rise buildings were safe.

"This collapse proves that we as a government can no longer entrust City Hall with the important function of the inspection of building construction," he said.

It was the worst building collapse in Nairobi since a balcony above a supermarket fell and killed at least 14 people and injured five others in 1996.

In that case, an extra storey had been illegally built on top of the balcony without any additional ground support, and without approval of the city's planning division.

- REUTERS