Hope fades over rescue of missing persons at collapsed building

By Cyrus Ombati

Desperation and hopelessness engulfed the site of the collapsed house in Pipeline in Nairobi with recovery teams saying they were unlikely to find a survivor.

A team of military personnel took charge in the search and recovery mission as relatives of the victims and those missing watched from a distance.

A military officer and Red Cross official talk to Ms Mary Kamba whose brother-in-law is still missing. Photo: Stafford Ondego/Standard

Officials manning tents erected at the scene said six people were registered as missing and the number would probably go up as more relatives come forward.

Two people have died and five are still admitted in hospital.

Rescuers worked overnight on Tuesday but no bodies or survivors were found. Another shift headed by Brigadier George Owino took over on Wednesday using bare hands, mattocks, mallets, spades, bulldozers and cranes in digging the rubbles in efforts to get to where the victims are believed to be trapped.

Mood at the scene

By last evening, the team was on the third floor of the sixth storey building. The pace at which the team of about 40 was moving at the scene told the mood of the exercise — hopelessness.

Overnight, they had used floodlights to continue with the exercise.

Brigadier Owino said the rubble may be cleared by tomorrow. Some of his team members who looked tired sat in shifts in the tents as their colleagues worked at the site.

The pain of waiting for the completion of the exercise could be seen in the faces of the relatives who were seated few metres from the house.

Among those missing is 22-year old Felister Ndinda who had reported to the site for work.

Her husband Cyrus Mumo, Ndinda had called her sisters minutes after the house collapsed and asked her to pick up her children from a school in Mukuru slums.

"She was on the ground floor of the building and those who were with her escaped. She later talked to some of her relatives but that was the last heard from her," said Mumo.

He said has been trying to reach his wife in vain.

"Her mobile phone is off. It went dead and I would want to see her dead or alive," said Mumo, who was in the company of his sister-in-law.

Relative’s agony

Nkatha Muriithi was also working on the second floor of the building as a mason when it collapsed and she has not been traced since then.

According to her friend Miriam Nyaga, Nkatha was in the company of about three others in the room and when it happened she thought it was council askaris who had arrived.

"I do not know how I will take care of her one year old child who she left with me. She was my friend and we have been masons for months now," said a thoughtful Miriam.

Nicholas Wanjau is also missing and his wife Susan Litore has been trying to reach him in vain. Litore wept as she narrated to journalists how she had spent the night there and in hospitals looking for Wanjau.

"I am told he was on the second floor at the time of the incident and he did not make it out. I have suffered since yesterday looking for him," she said as she fought back tears.