{"id":37415,"date":"2024-02-02T09:18:27","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T09:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=37415"},"modified":"2024-02-02T09:18:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T09:18:31","slug":"nairobi-fire-gas-blast-in-kenyan-capital-kills-three-and-injures-nearly-300","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=37415","title":{"rendered":"Nairobi fire: Gas blast in Kenyan capital kills three and injures nearly 300"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BBC News: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A huge gas blast in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has killed at least three people and injured nearly 300.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lorry carrying gas exploded in Embakasi district at about 23:30 (20:30 GMT), “igniting a huge ball of fire”, a government spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Housing, businesses and cars were damaged, with video showing a huge blaze raging close to blocks of flats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier, the government had said the blast happened at a gas plant. The cause is still being established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embakasi police chief Wesley Kimeto said a child was among those who died in the explosion, adding that the death toll could rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kenya Red Cross said it had taken 271 people to hospital and treated 27 others on site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fireball from the blast had “spread widely”, according to Isaac Mwaura Mwaura, the government spokesman, and a flying gas cylinder had hit a garments and textiles warehouse, burning it down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The inferno further damaged several vehicles and commercial properties, including many small and medium sized businesses,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Sadly, residential houses in the neighbourhood also caught fire, with a good number of residents still inside, as it was late at night.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Witnesses told local media they had felt tremors immediately after the blast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the injured are said to have inhalation injuries and they include at least 25 children, the Standard newspaper reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those hurt, Boniface Sifuna, described what had happened to Reuters news agency: “I got burnt by an exploding gas canister as I was trying to escape,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It exploded right in front of me and the impact knocked me down and the flames engulfed me. I am lucky that I was strong enough to get away.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Ngoge, who lives across the street from where the blast happened, told the AFP news agency that he was in his house at the time and “heard a huge explosion”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It felt like it was going to collapse. At first, we didn’t even know what was happening, it was like an earthquake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC News: A huge gas blast in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has killed at least three people and injured nearly 300. A lorry carrying gas exploded in Embakasi district at about 23:30 (20:30 GMT), “igniting a huge ball of fire”, a government spokesperson said. Housing, businesses and cars were damaged, with video showing a huge blaze raging close to blocks of flats. Earlier, the government had said the blast happened at a gas plant. The cause is still being established. Embakasi police chief Wesley Kimeto said a child was among those who died in the explosion, adding that the death… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37417,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37415\/revisions\/37417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}