Eastleigh Building Collapse: Heartbreaking Details Emerge About Mother Who Went to Buy Curtains

Dora Nyakitumwa, a 34-year-old mother, left for Eastleigh on October 23 to do something ordinary: buy curtains for her home. She never returned.

Kenya Red Cross rescue team at Eastleigh after woman (r) died in the collapsed building. Photo: Peter Makaveli. Source: FacebookDora had stepped into a curtain shop inside a multi-storey building when the structure gave way, trapping her and others beneath tonnes of rubble.

What began as a routine shopping trip became a tragedy that would shatter her family.

For the next 15 days, Dora's family clung to hope.

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Each update from the rescue site carried the weight of an entire household's prayers as search and recovery teams worked through the debris.

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When the operations finally concluded, Dora's name appeared among those confirmed dead.

Her husband, John Simiti, received the phone call no spouse ever wants to get, summoning him to identify his wife's body.

Beyond the personal grief, the collapse has ignited fury over how a building with active construction underway on its upper floors was simultaneously renting out commercial space on the ground level to unsuspecting members of the public.

Shoppers like Dora had no way of knowing that the structure above them was still being built.

The arrangement, which placed ordinary Nairobians inside an incomplete and reportedly unsafe building, has drawn sharp criticism at regulatory authorities accused of failing to enforce basic safety standards.

The disaster raises difficult questions about oversight, accountability and who bears responsibility when systemic failures cost innocent people their lives.

For John Simiti and his family, those questions offer little comfort as they mourn a wife and mother who simply went out to buy curtains.

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In another story, TUKO also highlighted that the death toll rose to eight after six more bodies were recovered on November 5.

Search, rescue and recovery operations have continued at the site since October 23.

John Green (Editor of parenting content) John is a Parenting and Human Interest Editor at Tuko (joined 2022). He graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the Multimedia University of Kenya (MMU). He has also received training from Google and WAN-IFRA. He previously worked at The Exchange and SportsLeo. Email: john.green@tuko.co.ke