NAIROBI
A huge fire swept across Gikomba, Nairobi's largest open-air market, on Monday evening, destroying property worth millions of dollars.
"The fire caught us unawares. We don't know its cause," Elias Kimani, a second-hand cloth dealer, told Anadolu Agency.
"We have lost property worth millions of dollars. The fire is big. I have lost dozens of bales of second-hand clothes. There is nothing to salvage. The fire is spreading and spreading."
Fire fighters are battling to bring the fire under control.
"The fire brigades are already at the scene and members from the National Youth Service are helping out with battling the fire," Peter Onyango from Kenya National Disaster Operation Center told AA.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.
Abiyud Ochieng, a reporter for Kenya’s largest daily newspaper Daily Nation, told AA that the fire is the size of a "football field".
"Traders are running helter skelter to save the little that is there in places yet to be reached by fire but they may not get anything," he said.
According to Ochieng, no deaths have been reported so far.
Police officials could not be reached for comment.
By James Shimanyula, Magdalene Mukami
englishnews@aa.com.tr
