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Rescue teams in Nairobi are racing to reach people trapped beneath a collapsed high-rise in the Eastleigh district, more than a day after the building under construction came down on Friday, October 23. Responders say they have made contact with six people still alive under the debris — while the number of people unaccounted for remains in dispute, and hard questions are already being asked about how shops were operating inside an unfinished building.
What happened on 9th Street
The building, on 9th Street off Yusuf Haji Avenue in Eastleigh, one of Nairobi's busiest commercial districts, collapsed at about 1:00 p.m. on Friday. Videos circulating online showed the structure suddenly crumbling into a heap of concrete and twisted steel, sending up a massive cloud of dust. Reports put the building at more than 15 floors; it was still under construction, wedged between other high-rises, which has complicated access for heavy machinery, according to Daily Sabah's report of the AFP coverage.
All 67 construction workers on the site have been accounted for: 66 escaped unharmed and one was taken to hospital in stable condition, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said, according to Capital FM. The danger is concentrated below: the ground floor and basement were occupied by 11 businesses — including an electronics shop, a butchery and a grocery store — even though construction was not finished. Two injured people were taken to Kenyatta National Hospital, and police said a woman was rescued from the rubble while another voice could be heard calling for help.
The missing: why the numbers differ
Murkomen said seven people were reported missing from the occupied floors, and responders have established contact with six people trapped beneath the debris — the detail that has turned the operation into a race against time. The Kenya Red Cross, which is running a tracing service for families, has handled a much larger number of missing-person reports: local outlets reported 31 people listed as missing on Saturday, while the Red Cross has also been steadily tracing and accounting for people first reported missing, including 26 by Friday. Officials stress that the figures will keep moving as reports are verified — some of the "missing" are expected to be found safe away from the site, while the confirmed trapped are the rescuers' first priority.
An occupied building that was never cleared for occupation
The sharpest questions concern how anyone was inside the building at all. Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja said the structure had not been issued a certificate of occupation, making the businesses on the ground floor and basement illegal — and that county records show an application for a building of more than 15 floors with a basement was submitted but never approved. The National Construction Authority said the project was registered on July 30, 2025, to developer 9th Street Plaza Limited, with Stromax Holdings E.A. Limited as contractor. Murkomen has warned that "those who will be found culpable will face the full force of the law."
At the scene, Bibiye Mahmoud, president of the Institution of Engineering Technology of Kenya, put the blame on a system where contractors and engineers are supposed to ensure works are supervised by professionals — "but most are not," she told AFP. "This is why we are seeing these catastrophes... There is no accountability."
For now, the focus stays underground, where six voices under the rubble are the difference between a rescue and a recovery. It has been a brutal week for disasters in the regions we cover — from the magnitude-7 earthquake in Tibet to Saturday's powerful quake near Vanuatu — but Eastleigh's collapse is different in one crucial way: it was not a force of nature. When the rescue ends, Kenya's investigation will have to answer how a building without approval or an occupation certificate came to be full of people on an ordinary Friday afternoon.