AT LEAST 75 people were killed and more than 100 injured after a leaking pipeline exploded in a densely populated slum in the Kenyan capital Nairobi yesterday.
The blast took place in the city’s industrial area, between Jomo Kenyatta airport and the city centre, where people had built houses on top of the pipeline.
Residents said the blast happened after people rushed to collect fuel that had spilled from a fuel depot owned by the state-owned Kenyan Pipeline Company.
The blaze swept through the site, levelling buildings and burning people, many of whom jumped into a nearby river.
Locals claimed a cigarette was thrown near the pipeline, but emergency officials said they were still determining the cause.
“Anything could have triggered the explosion,” said Pamela Indiaka, head of organisational development for the Kenyan Red Cross. “It could have been a cigarette, someone cooking or even an electrical spark from all the power cables that run through here.”
Many of the dead were children she added, who attended a school on the site which had been engulfed in flames.
Bodies were strewn out across corrugated roof tops which were also littered with the remains of animals killed in the explosion at the slum known as Sinai. As crowds gathered on the hillside overlooking the levelled site, people collapsed in shock as bodies were removed from the river which runs through it.
“If you don’t respect this body, you might as well throw me in there with him,” one man said as his dead friend was being dragged from the water.
Wearing face masks and rubber gloves, soldiers and members of the Red Cross put him into a white plastic bag with the rest of the dead bodies, each numbered differently. “Male. Number 75. 12/9/11.”
“This is the government’s fault,” said Richard Mokuya, a charcoal seller in Sinai. “If they had fixed the pipeline this wouldn’t have happened, but they don’t care where they dump their fuel.”
Prime minister Raila Odinga promised the government would pay compensation and cover the medical expenses of those sent to hospital.
“What I have seen is shocking,” he said after visiting the site. “This, I think, is one of the worst disasters that has happened in this country in the oil sector.”
Two years ago, more than 100,000 people were served with eviction notices, but oil explosions are not uncommon in Kenya. In 2009, at least 120 people died in the village of Sachang’wan in Molo after a fuel tanker exploded.