Kirinyaga county government evacuates 20 families after building develops cracks

County Government of Kirinyaga has evacuated 20 families who were living in house that has developed cracks in Kutustown.

The families were forced to move out of the area on Tuesday evening over fear that the building could collapse.

County Executive Committee Member for Lands, Physical Planning and Urban Development Samuel Kanjobe said the county had acted to save lives of people after receiving reports of a house that structural issues from members of the public.

Kanjobe said the County Government had already issued a three day vacate notice to the tenants after the house developed a fault line only for more cracks to emerge.

He said the residents had blamed the fault line on the old house on an adjacent three-storey building that is under construction.

“We sent our team composed of structural engineers, architects and building inspectors to this plot that was built a while ago in the late 70s and the complaint was about an adjacent building which had caused the old building to develop a fault line and we issued a stoppage notice,” he said.

The CECM said the owner of the storey building had been ordered to stop construction work until he sought out structural issues that had affected the adjacent house.

“We received further reports at around 5.15pm on Tuesday that numerous fault lines had developed and the canopy had started to come and it is then that we decided to have an emergency evacuation,” Kajombe said.

He said the county team will conduct further audit on both houses for a conclusive report on the cause of the cracks in the house.

Tenants living in the house thanked the county government and the disaster management team for quick response to save lives.

“We have been forced to vacate our houses because of the risk posed by the cracks. This problem has been caused by this adjacent building being constructed here, we want the County Government not to relent on its efforts to ensure people are safe from buildings being built without following the right procedure,” said Grace Wambui, one of the tenants.