A large fire has engulfed Nairobi’s Jomo
Kenyatta International airport, forcing the
cancellation of dozens of flights. By late Wednesday, the airport, East Africa’s
largest transport hub, re-opened for
domestic and cargo flights, officials said. Kenya Airways said its first overseas flights
from London and Bangkok would arrive, as
scheduled, early on Thursday and will be
processed through the domestic terminal. The fire started at around 5:00am local time
(02:00 GMT) in the immigration section of
the departure lounge and spread to the
international arrivals area. There were no reports of casualties, but
Mutea Iringo, a senior official at Kenya’s
interior and national coordination ministry,
said the fire was “massive”, adding that the
arrivals and immigration sections were
“totally damaged”. By 08:00 GMT, firefighters said they had
managed to bring the blaze under control,
while all roads around the airport had been
closed except to emergency traffic after
the fire broke out. Stranded passengers were seen scattered
on sidewalks outside the airport with their
luggage in hand. Images on Kenyan media had earlier shown
flames rising high in the sky and billowing
clouds of black smoke out of the main
arrivals and departures terminal, with
dozens of police and fire trucks at the
scene. The airport serves as a regional hub for east
Africa, with many long-distance
international flights landing there to
connect to countries across the region.
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