Fifteen killed, 70 injured as one of Nairobi’s open-air markets goes up in smoke.
NAIROBI: A fire swept one of Nairobi’s largest open-air markets, killing 15 people and sending 70 injured to hospitals, an official said, as traders who lived there struggled to wake their families and flee.
Nairobi County Commissioner Kangethe Thuku said six bodies had been recovered yesterday, while nine were in a building and had yet to be retrieved.
Rescue teams searched for more bodies and survivors in Gikomba market in the Pumwani low-income neighbourhood in Kenya’s capital.
Many Kenyans shop for secondhand clothes from the market, which also supplies other vendors with used clothes from Europe and the United States.
The cause of the fire was not immediately announced, but “for now we have declared this site a crime scene”, Thuku said.
Security forces guarded the smoking site as workers picked through the blackened rubble.
One market trader, Ruth Kaveke, grasped a wad of burnt currency – the only thing she managed to salvage from her cloth-making store.
It was the second time fire had destroyed her only source of livelihood in as many years. The fire started at around 2.30am. and was contained about an hour and a half later, according to the St John Ambulance charity.
Residents said the crowded market has had fires multiple times in recent years and traders have suffered huge losses.
Officials have said access roads are clogged with traders who block emergency response services, while critics say those services are poor.
The market is a five-minute walk from Nairobi’s central business district in an area targeted by the county government for an upgrade.