Six die as unfinished building's top floor collapses near Nairobi

Six people died Friday when the top floor of a multistorey building under construction gave way in the Syokimau area, southeast of Nairobi. Duncan Ochieng, the assistant inspector general of police in charge of disaster management in Kenya, confirmed the death toll to reporters at the scene and said five others were rushed to Imara Daima Hospital. A total of 405 workers were on site when the floor came down, and Ochieng said everyone has now been accounted for. The site was shut after the collapse.

The Kenya Red Cross flagged the Syokimau incident in a post on X. It lands barely three weeks after a 12-storey structure collapsed in Nairobi on October 23, killing eight people.

Kenya's state-run Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis pins most building collapses on poor workmanship, substandard materials, weak supervision and faulty structural designs. Data-driven research firm Stats Kenya counted 24 building collapses in the country in 2026 as of October — more than in any other year this decade.