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Market fire kills 15 in Kenya capital
NAIROBI, June 28, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A fire at Nairobi’s Gikomba market
killed 15 people on Thursday, a government official said, less than a year
after a blaze to destroyed much of the Kenyan capital’s largest open-air
market.
“We have lost 15 people from this tragedy this morning,” said regional
coordinator Kangethe Thuku.
“We’re yet to establish the cause of this fire,” he said, which is believed
to have started in a timber yard.
The pre-dawn blaze left over 70 people injured and destroyed many of the
market’s wood and tarp stalls where second-hand clothes, shoes and vegetables
are sold on the eastern side of the city.
A police officer at the scene said emergency services continued to search
the area.
“We are still trying to get to some corner [of the market] which has heavy
smoke, because part of the area has not been accessed due to live electric
wires,” the officer said.
Witnesses heard explosions as gas canisters were swept up in the inferno.
Nine of the dead were in an apartment block next to the market while six
others — including four children — died of their injuries in hospital.
A large fire destroyed much of the market in October last year.
In May 2014, 10 people died in a bombing at the market blamed on Al-Qaeda-
aligned Shabaab militants.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1350 hrs