At least 21 people have so far been confirmed dead after the
six-storey residential block in Nairobi's poor Huruma district
crumbled on Friday night. Police are questioning the owners after
President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered them detained.
"The child, who had been buried for about 80 hours, was found in a
bucket wrapped in a blanket. She appeared dehydrated, and with no
visible physical injuries," the Kenya Red Cross said in a statement.
The baby, named as Dealeryn Saisi Wasike, was identified by her
father after making a rapid recovery in hospital. A Red Cross
official said the fate of her mother was still not clear. The baby
had previously been estimated to be about a year old.
The collapse of the building was the latest such disaster in a fast
expanding African city that is struggling to build homes fast
enough.
Like many other cities in Africa, the population of Nairobi has
climbed dramatically in recent years. The Kenyan capital had almost
3.5 million people in 2011, about a third bigger than a decade
earlier, according to U.N. figures.
Governments have struggled to provide basic infrastructure and
bureaucratic processes to ensure planning rules are met.
Many Kenyans who come to the city in search of work end up in one of
several slums, such as Kibera, made up of makeshift homes of wood
and corrugated iron sheets.
Others live in slightly better off but still poor districts, like
Huruma, where concrete buildings have risen rapidly amid potholed
roads and ropey power supplies. Heavy rains have caused other
collapses in Nairobi but without such high death tolls.
The Interior Ministry said the Huruma building had been earmarked
for demolition as it was built close to a river, but the order had
not been carried out by local officials. It urged developers to
adhere to safety standards.
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After visiting the site on Saturday, Kenya's president ordered other
buildings to be surveyed to ensure they were safe.
Rescue workers had said on Monday that the chances of finding more
survivors was unlikely. About 136 people have already been saved
from the wreck.
Dozens of other people are still listed as missing, Red Cross
spokeswoman Arnolda Shiundu said, adding it was not clear how many
of those had escaped but had not yet been traced.
Similar disasters have afflicted other African conurbations. In
2014, a church in Lagos, one of Africa's biggest cities, collapsed
killing 115 people. A Nigerian coroner last year blamed poor
construction.
Poor and illegal construction has also often been blamed for the
crumbling of apartment blocks in Egypt, where almost all Egyptians
are crammed into the crowded Nile Valley and buildings are often
extended with extra floors piled on top.
(Additional reporting by Humphrey Malalo and Duncan Miriri; Writing
by Edmund Blair; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
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