Kenya: 39 missing in fire outbreak

  1. Posted on Friday 30 January 2009 - 11:43
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    Jack Shaka, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
    Thirty-nine people are reported missing and a man is dead following the recent wild fire outbreak at Nakumatt - one of Kenya's mega stores in the capital Nairobi. Red Cross officials said the dead person died from his injuries after jumping from an upstairs window on Wednesday to escape the flames.
    Nakumatta fire Photo_Jack Shaka
    It took several hours for firefighters to bring the inferno under control as many were trapped in their offices. Smoke could still be seen high in the skies barely 48 hours of the incident.

    “It was really horrible but we managed to come out the next day,” a journalist with the Daily Nation that operates in the same vicinity told AfricaNews.

    Emergency teams were counselling distraught relatives at a trauma centre set up near the burned-out store, BBC reported. Women and children and five of the store's 103 staff were reportedly among the missing.

    Kenyan media described scenes of chaos as the supermarket became consumed by fire. Some survivors said they escaped by leaping from upstairs windows. People said they had received desperate calls from relatives saying they were trapped inside and unable to escape.

    Nakumatt insisted the store had been in compliance with safety regulations. “We also wish to confirm that the building was fully fire-safety compliant and had been installed with advanced fire/smoke detectors,” it said.

    Experts from the army, police and fire brigade were reported to be on site as an investigation into the fire gets under way.

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