A second survivor has been brought alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Eastleigh, Nairobi, more than 24 hours after the structure came down. The person was taken to Kenyatta National Hospital for treatment as the search continued for anyone else who may still have been at, or close to, the site.
The rescue provides a significant new development in an operation that remained incomplete on 24 October. It confirms that people could still be reached after an extended period beneath the debris. It does not, however, establish a final account of everyone who was in or around the building when it collapsed.
By the afternoon of 24 October, the Kenya Red Cross said that 66 of 67 construction workers known to have been at the site had been traced and accounted for. Rescue teams nevertheless continued their work because that list did not rule out the possibility that other people had been inside the building or nearby when it failed. The distinction is important: the workers’ list is an operational starting point, not a confirmed total for all those potentially affected.
The rescue update said the survivor was transferred to hospital, but did not give further details about the person’s condition. It also did not provide a final figure for people who might remain unaccounted for. That uncertainty has kept the search focused on the rubble rather than treating the worker count as a conclusion to the incident.
Investigation continues alongside the search
Police were reported to have opened an investigation into the cause of the collapse and the possibility of criminal liability. They were also reported to be seeking the owner and contractor connected with the project. Those steps indicate that the response has moved beyond the immediate rescue phase, but they do not establish why the building collapsed or that any person is legally responsible.
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja said that the project had failed to comply with construction guidelines and that relevant information had been passed to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations. His statement is an assessment by the governor and a referral for investigation, rather than a finding made through a completed inquiry. The available update did not report an arrest, a charge or a final determination of liability.
For residents and families waiting for information, the two strands of the response remain closely connected. The search is intended to establish whether anyone else can be reached or located, while investigators are examining the circumstances that led to the collapse. Neither process had reached a final outcome in the information released on 24 October.
What is confirmed, and what remains unclear
The confirmed operational update is that a second person was rescued alive and taken to hospital. The Kenya Red Cross also reported the tracing of 66 of 67 known construction workers. These are separate facts: they show progress in the response, but they do not provide a complete casualty or missing-person total for everybody who may have been caught up in the collapse.
Rescue work therefore continued after the second extraction. The passage of more than a day between the collapse and that rescue underlines why responders had not ruled out the possibility of finding others. At the same time, the update offered no basis for predicting the result of the continuing search or for describing the condition of people who had not been located.
Any eventual explanation for the collapse will depend on the investigation. Until then, the status that can be stated with confidence is limited: one further survivor was recovered, the person was taken for treatment, a worker-accounting exercise was under way, and search and investigative activity continued in Eastleigh.
