First Body Pulled From Eastleigh Ruins After Seven-Day Search
Nairobi officials recover a woman's remains from the 18-story collapse while 16 others remain missing and thermal sensors detect two additional life signs.
By Larissa Shah ·
The first body was recovered from the rubble of an 18-story building in Nairobi on Friday, ending a seven-day search for victims of the structure's collapse. The victim, a woman, was found severely mutilated after being crushed by heavy concrete and steel in the Eastleigh commercial district. Sixteen people remain missing from the site.
The building, which was under construction, collapsed on the previous Friday. Johnson Sakaja, the governor of Nairobi, stated that the structure lacked required construction approvals. He noted that renting out the completed ground floor and basement units was illegal because regulations mandate an inspection and an occupancy certificate before any building can be inhabited.
Families who believed relatives were trapped beneath the debris have camped at the site for a week. Some began to lose hope after the critical 72-hour window following the collapse passed. They expressed increasing doubt that loved ones could survive more than three days under the wreckage.
No other survivors have been removed from the debris since Saturday. Four people rescued earlier described their traumatic experiences of being trapped under the collapsed structure. Authorities deployed thermal imaging technology provided by a Chinese team earlier in the week to aid the search. Officials reported that the equipment detected two humans beneath the rubble.
The recovery team worked through the fragmented concrete and rebar to extract the first confirmed casualty. The presence of thermal readings has intensified the effort to locate the remaining missing individuals in the unstable structure. Local residents continue to monitor the site as search operations proceed.
Sakaja confirmed the timeline of the building's development and its failure to meet safety codes. The incident has drawn attention to enforcement of construction standards in the densely populated area. The search for the 16 missing persons remains the primary focus of the ongoing operation.
The next phase of the search will rely on the continued use of the thermal imaging devices. Authorities plan to process the detected signals to pinpoint the exact locations of the remaining individuals. The recovery effort is expected to continue through the coming days.
