By Brendan Roane, Peter Fabricius and Agencies
Nairobi -
A massive fire engulfed Kenya’s main airport on Wednesday forcing the closure of a vital travel and trade gateway to east Africa.
Flames from the inferno lit up the early morning sky, and the intense heat drove back firefighters. There were no immediate reports of casualties or injuries.
Hundreds of passengers were stranded outside Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in the capital Nairobi, which was cordoned off to keep the public out after the fire started early in the morning in the arrivals and immigration area, officials said.
The cause of the fire at east Africa’s busiest airport was not yet known.
Eyewitness News (EWN) spoke to South African Adrian Adam who said he arrived at the airport to catch a flight.
“When we arrived we saw things were not in place as usual. The fire brigade was here and people were running out of the building. When we actually came in, some people said to us there’s a fire in front of the building and their plane just landed and they had to run out. So currently we are stuck here,” Adam told EWN.
SAA spokesman Tlali Tlali said the SA184 flight to Nairobi which was scheduled to depart on Wednesday morning had been delayed pending further news.
South Africa’s High Commissioner to Kenya, Super Moloi, said that as far as he knew no South Africans had been injured in the fire. But he said the High Commission was struggling to find out if any South Africans had been affected by the fire and needed help.
He had dispatched an official to the airport but access to the airport and information out of the airport were scarce.
However, many South Africans were believed to have been stranded at the airport as a flight had arrived from Joburg on Wednesday and another one had been due to leave soon after.
Flight 760, which had been due to leave for Joburg at 6.35am on Wednesday had been cancelled, Kenya Airways said.
Kenya Airways Flight 765 from Joburg had landed safely at JKIA at 5.27am, just after the fire broke out, an airline official said.
Kenya Airways said on its website that no one had been injured in the fire.
However it said a passenger and a staff member were taken to hospital because of smoke inhalation but were both “safe”.
“We are still fighting to contain the fire. Investigations will start immediately after,” said Michael Kamau, cabinet secretary for transport.
“The fire started at a central part of the airport which made access difficult.
“But we have closed the airport indefinitely as we try to contain the fire.”
One passenger at the airport said he heard two small explosions from the international arrival area, then sirens.
“I was waiting for my flight around 5am when I heard two explosions, as if from gas cylinder or an electricity fault,” said the passenger, a Kenyan who asked not to be named.
“Within minutes, the entire airport was secured by police and Kenya airport authority personnel, who ordered everybody out of the airport,” he said.
The airport buildings were ravaged by the fire.
Television pictures showed desks that had been reduced to charcoal inside the gutted terminal. The roof had partly caved in, and the floor was flooded from fire fighting efforts.
Stranded passengers watched from a short distance as smoke continued to billow from the building. Many sat on their bags or on the ground as they waited.
Svein Huseby, 38, an engineer from Norway who had been due to fly home today, said: “It’s been chaotic.
“No one knows if they will be going home in two hours, two days or two months. People are going crazy,” he said.
Exporters of perishable produce, mainly flowers, said the impact of the fire would cripple their businesses.
“This is disastrous,” Jane Ngige, chief executive officer of exporters association Kenya Flower Council, said.
Airlines are expected to divert flights to Kenya’s port city of Mombasa, Eldoret in the northwest and Kisumu in the west, as well as to neighbouring countries including Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.
Cabinet Secretary for the Interior Joseph Ole Lenku said security had been heightened at the airport after the fire started.
“People should not come to the airport while this work is ongoing,” he said.
Two days ago, a fuel pump failure caused big delays at Nairobi’s airport.
It was also in the news last week when several duty-free shops were repossessed by the Kenya Airports Authority on Thursday, following the expiry of a lease agreement.
The Star