The National Disaster Management Unit (NDMU) today vacated all the families living in a four-storey condemned building after it developed cracks in Nairobi’s Ngei area in Huruma.
Preliminary assessment show the building was poorly constructed and failed in structural threshold.
“We thank all the residents who understood the need for their safety and voluntarily evacuated themselves to alternative accommodation,” said Pius Masai, Ndmu director.
It is suspected the pillars and columns and the mixes were inadequate.
However, by yesterday, officials from Building Inspectorate in charge of quality under the ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development headed by Moses Nyakiongora had not visited the site.
This comes even as an interim report by a task force and a team of investigators formed to undertake forensic investigations into at least 200 buildings whose construction approvals are questionable has recommended demolition of at least ten houses.
Money fleecing cartels at City Hall has been blamed for issuing unapproved architectural plans and failing to enforce City Planning regulations to have all building plans approved before construction activities are undertaken.
Last year, police attached to Buru Buru Police Station averted a bloodbath through forcible evacuation of tenants from a five storey building that collapsed in Kariobangi South less than twelve hours before it came tumbling down.
A total of 400 buildings in out of the audited 3, 914 buildings in Huruma alone have failed structural test and thus should be demolished.
In August last year, three people were killed after a wall collapsed and trapped them underneath while digging trenches along Brookside Drive in Nairobi’s Westlands.
Four months earlier, three others were killed after a perimeter wall on Lenana Road collapsed on them as they shielded from the rain.