Collapsed Nairobi building's concrete had not set - claim

An Israeli rescue team pulled two more bodies from a collapsed building early today, bringing the death toll to 16 as police search for the owners of the building who reportedly rushed construction workers to put up new floors even before concrete on the lower level had set properly.

Rescuers from the US and Britain also helped Kenyan workers in their search for survivors possibly trapped in air pockets.

No one had a firm idea of how many more people could be trapped, since many of the labourers working on the five-storey building fled after it toppled.

Relatives have named 10 people whom they said were working at the site before the building collapsed and are now missing.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua the authorities had not yet found the owner or the contractor working on the building.

“Now we have been learning from some of the people who had been working in the building that … they were not being allowed to spend the normal 21 days to let the concrete set. It was taking much less before they were building another layer,” government spokesman Alfred Mutua said.

Danson Diru, the divisional criminal investigation officer for central Nairobi identified the owner as Jimmy Kehonge, and general contractor as Francis Gathiara.

Still-wet concrete could be seen falling off metal reinforcing bars as wreckage was hauled off the site yesterday.

The smell of rotting flesh began to waft from the rubble at sunset.

The arrival of special power tools that can cut through slabs of concrete and iron rods dramatically sped up the rescue effort.

The Israeli rescue team also started using high-tech detection equipment to look for survivors.

US Marines and Navy engineers based in nearby Djibouti were on the scene to see what assistance they could provide. A British team of experts arrived yesterday afternoon.

“The rescue effort is very complicated. … There is very narrow space to work there. There’s lots and lots of rubble,” US Army Colonel Donald Zimmer said at the site.

“Our hearts go out to the people who lost relatives here,” Paul Wooster, head of the 10-member British rescue team, said while studying the site ahead of operations.

“Our deployment here is to find as many people as possible,” he added.

President Mwai Kibaki returned early from an African Union summit in neighbouring Sudan and drove directly to the site yesterday afternoon.

“We want to pray the people still not recovered may be recovered. It is too soon to say anything about what has happened, but we need courage and to work hard,” he said.

Kenyan Army Major General Paul Opiyo, who was leading the operation, said rescuers had found four additional survivors still trapped in two locations, as well as a large air pocket.

The construction workers had just finished lunch and many were taking a nap when the building began to sway, then quickly collapsed, witnesses said.

About 280 construction workers were at the site in central Nairobi when the building came down, survivors said.

Officials have accounted for 108 people, including the dead and injured.