Uncertainty as families wait for loved ones to be rescued from rubble

A rescuer searches for survivors in an ongoing operation at the scene where a building collapsed in Huruma, Nairobi in this picture taken on May 2, 2016. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU |

What you need to know:

  • Ms Fraciah Kalekye, a 30-year-old mother of two, lies uneasily on a mattress, trying to find a position that does not place too much weight on her plastered left arm.

  • The young mother told the Daily Nation that her husband, father of her children and family breadwinner, 35-year-old Alfred Wambua, did not manage to leave their one-roomed house when the building collapsed on Friday night.

  • The young woman was taken to Kenyatta hospital on Friday at 11pm and discharged the following day. She has been at the social hall under the care of the Red Cross since then.

In one of two small sections of Huruma Social Hall, around 30 people sit or lie on mattresses laid out on the floo.

They bear the evidence of the ordeal they went through under the rubble of the seven-storey residential flat that collapsed recently: A plastered leg here, an arm in a sling there, and, on one, a bandaged head.

But on some of them no mark is visible — except a haunted look in their eyes that speaks of deep psychological wounds and trauma they are yet to deal with.

Ms Fraciah Kalekye, a 30-year-old mother of two, lies uneasily on a mattress, trying to find a position that does not place too much weight on her plastered left arm. Next to her, her young son plays quietly while family members look on and engage him in conversation.

Even though his elder brother is somewhere out there in the compound with other children, the five-year-old prefers to be close to his mother.

Ms Kalekye knows that she and her sons are lucky to be alive. But she will know no comfort until her husband is rescued. Or the body found. He was inside the building when it went down.

She sends her son away to go and find his brother and then says: “I have told my children that their father is in hospital; they do not know that he is yet to be rescued from the rubble.”

The young mother told the Daily Nation that her husband, father of her children and family breadwinner, 35-year-old Alfred Wambua, did not manage to leave their one-roomed house when the building collapsed on Friday night.

“It was purely by luck that the children and I were outside when the building came down because we had gone to see off a friend who had come to visit,” she said. “But my husband and his sister were inside.”

Ms Kalekye added that although she has sent people to  Kenyatta National Hospital, where the injured are admitted, and City Mortuary, nobody has seen her husband or his sister either, among the dead or the living.

She injured her left arm when building stones loosened in the rubble crushed her hand, breaking the bone between her little finger and the ring finger.

“When the building came tumbling down, all hell broke loose,” Ms Kalekye recalled. “The lights immediately went out. The dust from the concrete was blinding. People were running and screaming everywhere and I was afraid I would lose my children in the chaos. Luckily, I was able to find them and we made it to safety.”

The young woman was taken to Kenyatta hospital on Friday at 11pm and discharged the following day. She has been at the social hall under the care of the Red Cross since then.

“We lost everything; we only have the clothes on our backs,” she says but adds optimistically: “But we will be okey if my husband makes it out alive.”