Thika residents woke up to the sounds of destruction as bulldozers moved in to bring down a five-storey building over alleged land ownership wrangles.
Residents were left in disbelief as they watched the building come tumbling down as others with establishments nearby writhed in fear over the activity harming their business operations.
According to some of the locals, different parties have tussled over ownership of the land for close to a decade.
The one-acre piece of land is said to be a private property that was encroached on by some locals. A section of the locals revealed that the demolitions should have occurred earlier.
"This case has been in court even during the previous government. There was another demolition notice but it was stopped, I think the owner has won the case," one person added.
Working their way up, the bulldozers tore the houses apart leaving the owners counting losses running into millions of shillings.
By the time of publishing this article, the authorities had not issued a statement on the demolition or compensation for the owners of the buildings.
Meanwhile, Kenyans took the chance to attack the Kenya Kwanza government over the increased demolitions in the country. They argued that the destruction of property led to the loss of livelihoods for legitimate landlords.
In the past months, demolitions have made headlines including one in Athi River, Machakos County where houses built on the land belonging to East African Portland Cement (EAPC Plc) were brought down.
On land grabbing and unnecessary demolitions, President William Ruto in October emphasised that the government was looking at ways to reach an agreement with already occupying public land.
He explained that the government was willing to sell the land to the squatters to avoid demolitions which would then enable the government to acquire funds for development projects.
