At least six people have been killed and five others injured after the upper section of a multi-storey building under construction collapsed in Syokimau, southeast of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on Friday, November 13, 2026.
The Kenya Red Cross Society confirmed the incident in a statement posted on X, saying rescue and emergency response teams had been deployed to the scene.
Duncan Ochieng, Kenya’s Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of disaster response, confirmed the deaths while speaking to journalists at the site.
“So far, we have confirmed that six bodies have been recovered, while five people were rushed to Imara Daima Hospital,” Ochieng said.
He explained that 405 workers were at the construction site when the building collapsed. According to him, authorities had accounted for all of them, meaning no workers were still missing.
Ochieng added that the upper section of the multi-storey building collapsed while construction work was still underway. The site was subsequently closed following the incident.
The latest incident adds to a series of building collapses reported in Kenya in recent weeks, some of which have resulted in fatalities.
On October 23, 2026, a 12-storey building collapsed in Nairobi, killing eight people. That incident was followed by another building collapse that claimed six lives.
The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) has identified poor construction practices and the use of substandard materials among the factors contributing to building collapses in the country.
The institute has also pointed to inadequate supervision of construction works and faulty building designs as contributing factors.
Meanwhile, data from Statistics Kenya indicates that 24 buildings had collapsed across the country by October 2026.
According to the agency, this is the highest number of building collapses recorded in a single year over the past decade, highlighting growing concerns about construction safety and regulatory oversight in Kenya.