A five storey building collapsed in Ruiru, Kiambu County, Monday morning a few hours after Governor Kimani Wamatangi ordered evacuation of over 100 tenants before the collapse.
No tenants were inside the facility that local authorities had condemned citing poor workmanship and accusing the developer of not seeking approval before embarking on the project.
"The building that had 140 tenants caved in around 4am Monday. No tenant was inside after Governor Wamatangi ordered all the tenants on the said building to vacate. This was after a crack was noticed on its wall," Samuel Kahura, head of Kiambu Fire Brigade and Rescue Service told Daily Nation.
"Things would have been worse were it not for the intervention of the governor who made it compulsory that no tenant should remain in that building," Mr Kahura added.
The new development comes four days after another commercial building in Ruaka, Kiambu that was under construction collapsed and landed on a residential house claiming the life of a couple-identified as Peter Njuthi and his wife Faith Wambui Njuthi.
Just like in other situations, the family of the deceased, blamed greed, corruption and negligence at Lands, Housing and Physical Planning department in Kiambu County.
"This is where we used to sit with my parents. They have died because of someone's greed, as you can see the house was condemned but people who are supposed to stop the construction have been receiving bribes from the developer and my parents have paid the ultimate price for someone’s greed," Mr Patrick Karomo who lost his parents in Ruaka said on Thursday last week.
" The problem of building collapsing in Kiambu will not end any time soon. You want to do the right thing but those in charge can’t allow it and have to create roadblocks so that they have to come after every three weeks to ask for bribes after the developer gets tired and embarks without approval. So if the law says maximum should be five floors , I have to add another floor to recover my money that I have used in bribing the Planning department during the construction," a developer based in Kiambu told Nation in confidence
"Let us not lie that the authorities do not know what is happening. They are part of the problem," he added.
Mr Karomo had told Daily Nation that his late father together with his uncle had made countless visits to Kiambu county Physical Planning Department to stop the construction of the development that sits inside their homestead but with no success.
‘’Our visits turned out like we were only informing them that there is an opening to make money.Now look at what has happened,’’ Mr Karomo says with nostalgia.
Kiambu county is not new to houses collapsing due to poor workmanship and developers not seeking approvals from relevant authorities.
In all the reported cases of building collapsing and claiming lives, the developers argue that getting rightful approval from the county is challenging because of deliberate hitches for kickbacks prompting them to embark on construction without requisite approvals.
Last year in October, a nine storey building that was under construction in Ruiru, near Tatu City collapsed , luckily no worker was on site as they had taken a day off.
On August 31 last year , another five-storey building that was under construction in Gachie, collapsed, killing five people.
In September last year, another building in Kinoo which was being worked on the sixth floor partially caved in . No deaths were reported.
