At least seven children between the ages of eight and fifteen have been extracted without life after the collapse of a private school classroom, this morning on the Ngong Road in Nairobim in the district of Dagoretti South.
One of the two-storey buildings of the Precious Talents Primary School suddenly collapsed at around 7 a.m. while the pupils were getting ready for class, about sixty young people were transported to the nearby Kenyatta Hospital, while another 10 schoolmates were still under the rubble in the afternoon.
The school is home to over eight hundred students.
While parents and the local community accused private facility owner Moses Wainaina of placing the children in precarious classes and not up to scratch, between sheet metal and wire mesh, school leaders instead pointed the finger at the sewerage system and water pipes on Ngong Road that would weaken the foundations. The usual disgraceful ping-pong of accusations that must be witnessed everywhere in the aftermath of a tragedy.
Eveline Shigani, the mother of a first-class pupil, told the Daily Nation that the school had built the classrooms in a reckless manner.
"The classes were built with iron plates and then cement was poured onto the plates. This insulting system led to the death of those children," the woman said, adding that the school administrator closed the main exit and that parents had to knock down the gate to try to save their children.
The Precious Talents Primary School was closed for a week to allow investigations into the real
The disaster highlighted the lack of appropriate government controls on private facilities and the relative safety of Kenyan schoolchildren.

(photo: courtesy)