Eastleigh Building Collapse: Possible Signs of Life Detected Under Rubble

The search and rescue operation at the collapsed multi-storey building in Eastleigh, Nairobi, entered its sixth day on Wednesday. Rescue teams continued to comb through the rubble as authorities sought 16 people who remained unaccounted for.

Nairobi North Regional Commissioner Simon Osumba said rescuers had found neither survivors nor bodies by Wednesday. However, specialized equipment had detected possible signs of life beneath the debris.

Authorities reduced the number of people reported missing from 20 to 16 after verifying names submitted to the Kenya Red Cross and conducting investigations through the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Osumba said.

Phone data showed that nine of the 16 missing people had last contacted relatives from the area where the building collapsed. Authorities were waiting for telecommunications providers to supply information in four other cases. Investigators could not trace the remaining three people because they had not received the phone numbers needed to identify them.

The verification process also reunited four people with their families. Authorities continued working to establish how many people may have been inside the building when it collapsed.

National Disaster Management Unit Director Duncan Onyango said rescue teams were racing against time but faced major challenges reaching areas where people might still be trapped. Acoustic life detectors deployed on Tuesday picked up possible signs of life beneath the rubble, raising hopes that some of the missing people might be alive. Rescuers had not yet reached the locations identified by the equipment.

The Kenya Red Cross and a Chinese team known as Blue Sky provided the specialized devices, which detect sounds that may indicate people are trapped beneath collapsed structures.

“Safety of the responders is also a priority because even if you detect a life and you are not able to access this life within the shortest time possible, then still you are not going to rescue the person,” Onyango said.

He said the confined collapse site had complicated the operation, forcing rescuers to work from one side of the debris rather than approach the structure from all four sides.

“As a country, we have never experienced such kind of a 16-storey building coming down,” he said.

Despite the difficulties, Onyango said teams remained hopeful of finding survivors. He added that they would continue recovery work if they found no one alive.

The Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company cleared water that had collected in the basement, allowing teams to resume work in the affected sections. Onyango estimated that teams had completed about 80 percent of the planned work but said the remaining tasks would depend on technical challenges they encountered. They hoped to meet their objectives by the end of Wednesday or on Thursday.

Some businesses in the surrounding area have reopened, while authorities have kept the collapse site cordoned off as rescue and recovery efforts continue. The disaster also affected traders whose shops and goods were buried or damaged. Teams have entered several ground-floor and basement businesses to retrieve property.

Onyango said teams were recording recovered items and taking them to a police station, where officers would hold them until their owners came forward. Authorities will determine the total number of affected businesses after traders account for their goods.

Authorities urged families with missing relatives to remain patient while search teams continued looking for people believed to be trapped. They said teams would prioritize the safety of emergency responders.

The building collapsed on Friday, prompting an operation by emergency response teams to determine whether anyone remained alive beneath the rubble and recover those who may have died.

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