Tenants of a residential apartment in Kinoo, Kiambu County have been evacuated after a five-storey building collapsed, leaning on a nearby flat.
Images seen by Kenyans.co.ke show the incomplete structure leaning precariously on one side of the apartment.
According to tenants in adjacent buildings, the incident is said to have occurred on Saturday 5, at about 11.30 pm. At the time building disintegrated, nobody was in the building.
Police officers were dispatched to the scene to control the scene the was already milling around during the early hours of Sunday 6. The officers were also to oversee the evacuation process to avert any lurking danger.
The information board on the site indicated that works on the latest building to cave in were approved by the National Construction Authority (NCA).
The incident comes barely months after a six-storey building partially collapsed in Kinoo on September 3. Construction workers told the press that they had warned the owner of the project about the stability of the building after it developed some cracks.
The latest incident reignited conversation online on the safety of the mushrooming buildings across the country, since the Kinoo case is not an isolated one. While some opined that the contractors are to be blamed, others pointed an accusing finger at the government.
However, the president of the Institution of Engineers of Kenya (IEK) Engineer Nathaniel Matalanga shed some light on why the majority of the buildings under construction in Kinoo were susceptible to crumbling.
Speaking to the media in 2021, he opined that the pedological profile of the area- majority composed of red soil- required that buildings have a very strong foundation built using quality materials. But this is usually not the case for some contractors and owners who are in a rush.
“You cannot build a five-story structure on a narrow foundation without the service of a structural engineer, it will collapse,” Matalanga told the Standard.
In September 2021, the Kiambu County government launched a crackdown against rogue landlords who intentionally ignored warnings issued against illegal structures that ended up collapsing. If the recent cases is anything to go by, then the County has a long way to go in guaranteeing that all buildings meet the minimum requirements and avert future disasters.
