It was a calm Saturday afternoon when Kisumu’s Mega Plaza located at Oginga Odinga street started shaking at around 3.00 pm, triggering a major stampede as occupants scampered to safety.
Experts who arrived at the building to inspect it discovered that one of the floors of the two-tower building had developed a crack. One tower has 16 floors while the second tower has 17. The cause of the crack could not immediately be established.
Kisumu County government, through Abala Wanga, the acting City Manager, sent experts to the scene as soon as news filtered that the building had developed a crack and that it could collapse.
However, those familiar with the building told Kisumu City News that crucial pillars supporting the building had developed cracks and that these pillars could no longer support the structure.
From eye-witness accounts, it sounded like it is just a matter of time before the building crumbles with possible deaths of a large number of people who work or frequent the facility.
Many institutions and businesses, including banks, health premises, beauty parlous, insurance companies, apparel shops, electronic shops, entertainment joints and food joints, populate the building with regular customers and workers. The collapse of the building can, therefore, be a significant disaster in the city.
Before the crack, some construction work was on-going in the building, apparently to repair some damage that surfaced following the expansion of the Plaza in 2016 to increase business space.
The expansion gave rise to apartment blocks, retail space, entertainment joints, information offices, communication centres and retail space.
When the incident occurred, Taxi operators who normally idle around the building waiting for customers were seen running for dear life as ululations from occupants scampering to safety rent the air. By Sunday, the cracked floor was under repaired.
Some workers had raised concerns that cracks had emerged on some tiles following the 2016 expansion, but due to fear of creating panic and hurting business, the management is said to have down-played the issue of the cracked tiles.
When the building shook, Ambasha Ochieng, who was one of the panic-stricken shoppers to flee from the scene, told Kisumu City News that he thought that there had been a tremor, if not an earthquake.
If it is true that the building is defective and has cracks that could one day cause it to collapse, then it is a real ticking time bomb in Kisumu which the County government has to look into very seriously.
