Government turns to social media for Jomo Kenya International Airport fire updates

By Alphonce Shiundu

NAIROBI, KENYA: Top government officials and the country’s emergency response teams turned to social media early Wednesday to give the country live updates about a massive inferno that was raging at Kenya’s biggest airport, the Jomo Kenya International Airport.

Cabinet Secretary Francis Kimemia, Interior Principal Secretary Mutea Iringo, the Kenya Red Cross, and the National Disaster Operation Centre all gave live updates on Twitter about the extent of the fire and the emergency response in putting the fire out.

The Director of Digital and New Media in the Office of the President, Mr Dennis Itumbi, also joined the buzz with updates about the “coordinated response from the military, Nairobi’s County government, the G4S”, plus other security companies, which had dispatched their fire engines to battle the inferno.

The official twitter handle of the Ministry of Interior and Cordination (@InteriorKE) went live with hourly updates confirming the fire as early as six in the morning. It said the fire began shortly before 5am. The Kenya Red Cross had already tweeted about it and so had the Kenya Airports Authority.

“We confirm that there is a fire at JKIA. International Arrivals Building affected," KAA tweeted.

The authority also added that the Cabinet Secretary in charge of Transport and Infrastructure, Mr Michael Kamau, will be holding a briefing where details about the damage and the period of closure of the airport are expected to be released.

He briefed the media and said the airport was closed.

@InteriorKE also notified journalists and media houses about the raging inferno, with pointers that the immigration section had been “badly damaged”. Pleas for motorists to give way to emergency units also went out through the Twitter handle under the name of PS Iringo.

“Apart from emergency landings, all flights into and out of JKIA have been canceled. Airport has been shut down,” the ministry of Interior tweeted some minutes after seven o’clock, just as Twitter went viral with pictures of the fire and hashtag #JKIAFire.

Mr Iringo added: "The airport has been closed down. Flights routed to Mombasa and Eldoret airports as primary landing."

Kenya Airways, the country’s national carrier also notified its passengers about the cancellation of all its flights: “Esteemed Guests, JKIA is closed due to the unfortunate fire incident, all flights cancelled please don’t come until we update soon ^ HL”

The fire comes within days of the closure of Duty Free shops at the airport, and just days after flights delayed owing to the failure of a fuel pump. The cause is not yet known, and no details of casualties have been reported as at now.

Mr Kimemia had to direct traffic to his Twitter handle to @InteriorKE for “updates and more developments”.

The @InteriorKE got thumbs-up from the public.

“We are duty bound to inform the public. Glad to see a (government) account serving the people actively with critical info. Thumbs up!” tweeted Saddique Shabaan, a media personality.

“Today must be the first time a government Twitter handle, @InteriorKE , has had timely, informative updates. It was the first place I saw the fire,” noted John Ngirachu, a journalist.

Kenyans at the airport tweeted pictures of the massive fire.