“The whole slum seemed to spring into action, with men, women and children grabbing buckets, oil tins, battered yellow jerry cans — anything to carry the spilled fuel. Even minibuses raced in from miles away, looking for free gas, a small godsend in a place where most people are jobless and live in rusty metal shacks that rent for $25 a month.”

As hundreds descended to the body of water where a tanker had begun to leak barrels of oil into a ravine in the Sinai the Lunga Lunga industrial area, the water and air exploded.

“The BBC's Kevin Mwachiro says a cigarette butt is believed to have started the fire”

It is also speculated that the sparks from the constantly burning trash throughout the city perhaps ignited a river of fire.

I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong if it wasn’t for a text message that my program director sent us at 2:45, advising us to avoid the southern part of the Nairobi.

People were just going on with their day – I assume that most people were completely unaware as they rode matutus, drank a tusker or just sat around the city center. There were no news reports blaring from store front radios, or no news coverage with masses of people huddling around the glowing screen.

No one speculated a bombing, no one thought terrorism – it was a cig or some trash that ignited a flock of people who were attempting to obtain a resource that is arguably essential. As the quote from the NYT stated, there are no jobs, there are even fewer opportunities and free fuel held endless possibilities.

Once the fire began, people ran into the oil drenched water to escape the flames.

There was a preschool that was devastated in the explosion.

and to think people have always thought Nairobi to be blessed in a sense because oil hasn't been discovered there yet. 


"People were scooping fuel from the leaking pipeline when the explosion happened. They would not have been doing that if Sinai was a well-built area and its residents had decent jobs."

kind of makes you hate the power of petroleum.