Benjamin Muindi
5 June 2011
Nairobi — It was no ordinary blast, according to Mr Stephen Maina, a spare parts dealer.
Mr Maina recalls hearing a deafening blast then seeing a ball of fire and thick smoke that filled the Grogan area.
He was a few metres away from a shipping container housing a shop from which the blast is believed to have emanated.
“People were running all over the place,” he said at the Casualty department of Kenyatta National Hospital.
His brother John Karanja, who runs the shop that sells car parts, was seriously injured in the blast.
Mr Karanja, 41, who had worked in the container for more than 10 years, was walking towards the shop when the blast occurred, throwing him on the ground before it crushed him against a car.
According to Mr Maina, none of the 10 or so shops in the area stocked gas cylinders, which some people claim to have caused the explosion.
“All the shops compete to sell spare parts,” he said.
Residents of Shabir Centre, a six-storey block of flats along the lower Kirinyaga Road, were not spared.
Windows were shattered and household items tumbled from shelves.
Mr Michael Mitao, a resident of Block G at Shabir Centre, sustained cuts to the face and arms when his living room window was shattered.
His wife, Anne, who spoke from Park Road Nursing Home, told of items in the house spinning and the ground in the kitchen being elevated.
“The fridge was shaking and cutlery was strewn all over when my husband came and grabbed my hand. He was screaming: leave the house, leave the house!”
Ayaan Altaf, a one-month-old who was sleeping at the time of the explosion, sustained facial cuts.
Mr Altaf Adam, his father said: “I heard a loud blast and then my son started to cry. I found him bleeding from the cuts.”
Mr Osman Hassan Haji, also a resident of Shabir Centre, said three of his relatives were injured.
His brother, Mahmmud Hassan, and father, Hassan Ahmed Haji, are at the intensive care unit of the MP Shah Hospital.
His father Bilal Ismail, who was repairing his car outside the building, sustained burns and cuts on his body.
AllAfrica – All the Time
Read the article:
Blast Witnesses Describe Bang And Ball of Fire