More than 150 tenants have been ordered out of a 10-storey apartment block on Kabiria Road in Riruta Satellite, Dagoretti South. A loud bang on the seventh floor and a large crack in one of the walls led engineers to declare the building unsafe. It is the latest scare for Nairobi residents still shaken by the Eastleigh collapse.

Police say the evacuation took place on Saturday, October 31. A report reached them at about 3.45pm through an assistant director in the Nairobi County fire department. Officers from Riruta Police Station found a team of county planning engineers already inspecting the building, which sits in the Kwa Maji area of Kabiria.

Tenants scramble for shelter

After looking at the cracks, the engineers told all occupants to leave immediately. Police said 156 tenants complied without any incident. The order gave families little time to pack. Some carried what they could and left the rest behind as they looked for somewhere else to spend the night.

Officers have since guarded the building to keep people out while the county carries out further assessments. Police say the cause of the cracks has not yet been established.

County says block lacked approval

Nairobi County's Director of Planning Compliance and Enforcement served an enforcement notice on October 31. It describes the property as a "dangerous and ruinous" permanent structure with 10 levels of occupation, on Nairobi Block 66/7880 along Kabiria Road in Riruta Ward.

The county accuses the developer of breaking the Physical and Land Use Planning Act of 2019, the Building Code 2024 and city by-laws. It says the building was put up without the required planning permission. The notice makes the following orders:

  • all occupants must leave immediately;
  • the structure must be removed;
  • if the owner does not comply, the county will act itself and recover the cost from the owner as a civil debt.

The owner of the building has not been publicly named and has not commented.

Fresh worries after Eastleigh

The scare comes about a week after a building under construction in Eastleigh collapsed. Search and rescue teams are still at that site, and families are still waiting for news of relatives reported missing. Since then, residents in several parts of the city have become quicker to report cracks, tilting walls and other warning signs.

Housing advocates have long warned that fast-growing estates such as Riruta, Kawangware and Kabiria are full of tall residential blocks. They say many of these went up with little oversight while demand for cheap rental housing kept rising. The Kabiria evacuation is likely to add to pressure on City Hall and the National Construction Authority to audit high-rises across Nairobi before more lives are lost.

For the displaced tenants, the immediate problem is finding a new home. Many paid November rent only days ago and now face new deposits and moving costs, with no word yet on whether they will get any money back.

Photos: Citizen Digital; Kahawatungu. Thumbnail design: HAMASTA MEDIA.