Two people were confirmed dead while several others are feared trapped following the collapse of a four-storey building at Blue Estate in Shauri Moyo, Nairobi.
According to police, the incident occurred on Monday afternoon when a structure marked for demolition along the Nairobi River suddenly caved in.
Authorities said the building, located within Blue Estate in the Shauri Moyo area, had been earmarked for demolition for being on riparian land under the ongoing river regeneration programme.
Preliminary investigations indicate that a group of young men had entered the building to dismantle parts of it in search of scrap metal when the structure collapsed.
Police officers responding to the incident established that several of the youths were trapped under the debris.
Three victims were rescued alive and rushed to Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital where they are reported to be in stable condition.
However, two bodies were retrieved from the rubble.
Rescue operations are ongoing as emergency teams continue searching the debris amid fears that more people could still be trapped beneath the collapsed structure.
According to a statement from Nairobi North County Commissioner Simon Osumba, the structure was among buildings located along the riparian corridor of the Nairobi River that had been earmarked for removal under the Nairobi Rivers Commission-led Nairobi River Regeneration Project.
Emergency response teams drawn from the Kenya Defence Forces, National Police Service, National Government Administrative Officers, and the Kenya Red Cross Society were quickly deployed to the scene, where search and rescue operations went on.
