What was to be a normal food delivery day for Lucy Wanjiru, on Wednesday, November 16, turned tragic after she was caught in the rubble of the building that collapsed in Kasarani, Nairobi county.
Reports indicated that Wanjiru was in constant communication with the Kenya Red Cross rescuers until her phone went off deep into the night.
Unfortunately, by the time the rescuers reached her, she had already succumbed to the injuries she sustained when the building crumbled.
During the search exercise, the Disaster Response Unit attached to the military was dispatched to aid in the recovery. At the time of publishing this article, eight bodies were retrieved while the death toll stood at three.
Efforts by the rescuers to retrieve the bodies were hampered by the heavy downpour as well as one of the excavators which experienced mechanical challenges due to fuel tank leakage.
The excavator was key because it contained night vision and floodlight equipment.
This forced the rescuers to use only one excavator during the search operation. According to bystanders, a foreman and three more people are still trapped in the rubble.
The hunt for the owner and the contractor of the building is still ongoing as they are still on the run.
Past reports indicated that City Hall Officers had arrived hours before the incident for a routine inspection and warned the workers to leave the construction site immediately- declaring it unsafe.
However, the supervisor is reported to have ignored the warning and urged the workers to proceed with the construction.
The tragedy comes as a recent survey by the National Construction Authority (NCA) revealed that 3 out of 10 buildings under construction in Nairobi county were found to be non-compliant.
