NAIROBI: At least seven people died when a six-storey building collapsed in the Kenyan capital amid torrential rainstorms, police said on Saturday, as rescue teams shifted rubble in a desperate search for survivors.

One survivor was pulled from the huge pile of rubble shortly after dawn, Kenya Red Cross said, some 10 hours after the building collapsed on Friday night and as skies cleared after a night of ferocious storms.

“We have lost seven people after the house collapsed last night,” Nairobi police chief Japheth Koome said. “We have 121 others who have been rescued and taken to hospital.” Kenya Red Cross, who along with police and other rescue services continued to search the piles of crumbled concrete rubble, said a total of 150 households had been affected.

Two neighbouring buildings in the densely-populated and poor Huruma neighbourhood were declared unsafe on Saturday and are being evacuated.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2016