A huge inferno has gutted East Africa’s largest open-air market, the Gikomba market, k*****g more than 15 people, including four children, officials said on Thursday morning.
“The f**e started from inside a timber shop,” said Nairobi Regional Commissioner William Kang’ethe Thuku, adding that it spread to nearby shanty houses and a second-hand clothing section of the market.
“A team of police and firefighters arrived at the scene in a bid to stop the f**e. Fifteen people have been confirmed d**d and more than 70 others have been admitted with light f**e i******s to serious burns.”
Thuku said that the cause of the blaze has yet to be determined but that in previous years, power lines in the area had started f***s.
St John’s Ambulance had earlier put the f**e at nine. “At least nine people feared d**d, 58 i*****d, property worth millions destroyed after a f**e o******k at Nairobi’s Gikomba market at 2 am. V*****s rushed to KNH (Kenyatta National Hospital),” it said.
Millicent Omanga, a local shop owner, was crying in the aftermath of the f**e, which claimed her business.
“I’ve lost everything, I don’t know where I’ll start, my shop was torched to the ground,” she said.
S***************e operations for m*****g persons are still ongoing.
Thuku said that cooking g***********s, which are still e*******g, were further complicating the rescue process and that the number of i*****d people could be higher.
Nine of the d**d were in an apartment block next to the market while six others d**d of their i******s in hospital.
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Thurday’s f**e is the seventh at Gikomba Market in less than 10 years. A large f**e destroyed much of the market in October last year.
In May 2014, 10 people d**d in a b*****g at the market blamed on Al-Q***a-aligned S*****b m*******s.
– Online sourcesÂ
