Six construction workers have been killed and five others pulled out alive after an eight-storey building under construction partially collapsed on Friday morning, November 13, in the Syokimau area along Mombasa Road, near the Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) Terminus, local media outlet Citizen TV reported, in a story carried by Reuters.
Source: Reuters via Citizen TV, Nov 13, 2026
The building came down at approximately 9:52 a.m. local time while construction workers were on site. According to a preliminary situation report by the Nairobi City County emergency and rescue team, the building's top slab gave way, bringing down part of the structure and trapping workers beneath the debris, Pulse Kenya and The Eastleigh Voice reported.
Source: Pulse Kenya, Nov 13, 2026
Three bodies were recovered during the initial rescue operations and three more were retrieved from the debris later, the county report said. The victims were identified as middle-aged men. Five survivors were pulled from the rubble and rushed to hospital for emergency treatment.
The Kenya Red Cross said in an update on X that at least three people had been rescued and taken to hospital, and that search and rescue operations were continuing for one person reported missing. "Our Red Cross Action Team is on site, working alongside other partners. We will share more updates as they come in," the Red Cross said.
Source: The Eastleigh Voice, Nov 13, 2026
"The exact number of workers who were on site at the time of the collapse is still being established. Search and rescue teams are actively combing the debris to locate any individuals who may remain trapped," the Nairobi City County report stated. Nairobi City County Fire Brigade and Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) teams are on site, and authorities have urged the public and motorists using Mombasa Road near the SGR Terminus to keep clear of the immediate incident area so rescue teams can work without obstruction.
Second deadly Nairobi collapse in three weeks
The Syokimau collapse comes exactly three weeks after another multi-storey building under construction collapsed along 9th Street in Eastleigh, Nairobi, on October 23, killing eight people. In that disaster, authorities recovered eight bodies and rescued four people alive before officially ending the operation on November 6, with three people still unaccounted for. This is a separate incident at a different site — not a continuation of the Eastleigh collapse.
Building collapses are frequent in Kenya and are mainly caused by poor workmanship, substandard materials, weak supervision and faulty structural designs, according to the state-run Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, cited by Reuters. The Eastleigh collapse triggered investigations into construction approvals and possible criminal negligence involving developers, contractors and public officials, and the circumstances of the Syokimau building — including its approvals, structural integrity and compliance with safety requirements — are expected to be central to investigations into Friday's collapse.
What happens next: rescue teams were still combing the debris on Friday for the worker reported missing, and the confirmed toll could change as the search continues. Awaaz Punjab will update this story as Nairobi City County and the Kenya Red Cross issue further confirmed figures.