General Assignment: Trial by Fire

The past three days have been crazy.

I covered my first disaster and it was my first time operating as a general assignment reporter here. A huge 24-hour supermarket called Nakumatt caught on fire and I was on the scene with a few other K24 reporters. My story was about Nairobi's disaster preparedness and emergency response.

Thursday I did a follow-up on the preparedness with input from city officials, then Friday, I went back to the business team and reported on the insurance coverage Nakumatt should have had.

It was a catastrophic tragedy. Reports say more than 40 are missing, and to date, 15 confirmed dead. Authorities are still searching the rubbish for more bodies. It's now three days later and as the smoke is still clearing, the stench saturates Downtown Nairobi.

Many have never seen anything like this before. Please pray for the families affected.

These are just a few pictures.






This is Simiyu Werunga, the executive director of the East African Institute of Security Studies. He said something very interesting about the country's preparedness. "This country does not seem to have learned anything from managing disasters." Werunga was talking about the last huge disaster, which was the post-election violence experienced in the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008.






Stay tuned...