Blue Sky Rescue detects two life signals at Eastleigh collapse in Nairobi, Kenya; Red Cross says 20 missing

Blue Sky Rescue, a Chinese humanitarian disaster relief organisation, has detected two distinct life signals deep beneath concrete slabs and twisted metal at the collapsed building in Eastleigh, Nairobi, Xinhua reported on 27 October. Xinhua said the Kenya Red Cross put the number of missing at 20 on the evening of 27 October.

Zhang Yuran of Blue Sky Rescue said the team had been conducting life-search work and cooperating with several rescue teams on site. He said rescuers had begun clearing access routes to the two locations where the signals were found.

The team arrived on 26 October with high-precision radar life detectors, seismic acoustic sensors and snake cameras. Anthony Muchiri, emergency operations manager at the Kenya Red Cross, said: "By using the specialized equipment from China, rescuers have narrowed their search to specific locations."

China's Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group (XCMG) has provided an excavator and a 25-tonne crane for the search. William Sifuna Watitwa, a staff officer for the Nairobi North sub-region, said: "The excavator played an instrumental role in rescuing two people trapped beneath the debris on Saturday [24 October]."

The multi-storey building collapsed on 23 October in Eastleigh, a high-density commercial and residential suburb of Nairobi.

The Kenyan news site Kenyans.co.ke reported on 27 October that the Kenya Defence Forces had said six survivors had been recovered by 26 October, and that Kamukunji MP Yusuf Hassan had said Blue Sky Rescue detected two people alive in the basement.