Inferno in Nairobi’s biggest open market kills 15

– A fire at Nairobi’s Gikomba market killed 15 people yesterday less than a year after a blaze destroyed much of the Kenyan capital’s largest open-air market.

“We have lost 15 people from this tragedy this morning,” said regional coordinator Kangethe Thuku.

“We’re yet to establish the cause of this fire,” he said, which is believed to have started in a timber yard.

Shoddy wiring has been blamed for past fires at Gikomba, with traders saying there have been numerous smaller fires in recent months.

Yesterday’s pre-dawn blaze began at 2am and left over 70 people injured, destroying many of the market’s wood and tarp stalls where second-hand clothes, shoes, vegetables and other items are sold on the eastern edge of the city.

A police officer said emergency services continued to search the area and that several people were missing.

“We are still trying to get to some corners (of the market) where there is heavy smoke, because part of the area has not been accessed due to live electric wires.”

Hundreds of people crowded around the smouldering ruins of the market, desperately trying to retrieve their goods as gas canisters, swept up in the inferno, exploded.

Maggy Njeri, a second-hand clothes trader, wept by the ruins of her stall. Vincent Kimani stood by his stall clutching a wodge of burned banknotes. “I am totally finished,” he said.

Nine of the dead were found in a six-storey apartment block next to the market while six others, including four children, died of burns and smoke inhalation in hospital.

Many of the injured were taken to the city’s main Kenyatta National Hospital where distraught relatives roamed the corridors. Rushing from ward to ward, Betty Kaveke was desperately looking for her three missing children.

Traders said there have been at least four fires at Gikomba in the last seven months, while the last major blaze, in October last year, destroyed much of the market. Some suspect arson. “This is not just another fire incident. There’s more to it,” said a detective who did not want to be named.

In May 2014, 10 people died in a bombing at the market blamed on al-Qaeda-aligned Shabaab militants. – AFP

Picture: AFP LIVES IN RUINS. Debris smoulders after a fire gutted a timber dealership at Gikomba market and spread to nearby stalls and homes in Nairobi yesterday. Nine of the dead were in flats next to the market.