NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A fire raced through a Nairobi slum, destroying hundreds of ramshackle tin and timber houses and leaving 4,500 families homeless, district officials said Friday.
Some officials, basing estimates on voter registration records, said as many as 30,000 people were made homeless. The cause of the blaze was not known. There were no reports of casualties.
The fire started Thursday evening and continued through the night, said Mohammed Sheikh, district officer for the area. He said officials were working to find shelter for thousands of survivors.
``They are just desperate, hopeless, sleeping in the cold,'' said city councilor Eliud Muriithi. ``We want to take statistics of the people, then see what assistance will be available.''
Muriithi said as many as 30,000 residents of Mariguini village could have been made homeless by the fire. It began around 9 p.m. Thursday and, fanned by winds, swept through slum's houses that were jammed side by side, separated only by muddy walkways and open sewage drains.
The area was still smoldering Friday, as residents trawled through the ashes to salvage belongings. Many said they had lost everything.
``We have nothing. It's only the clothes we are wearing,'' said Edith Wanjiru, as a burst of wind swept ash into her face. ``It was very big. People were running, trying to carrying something but it was impossible because there were so many people and the houses are squeezed (together).''
Men and women stacked piles of corrugated iron sheets on the dirt patches that had once been their homes, while children, some dressed in dirty school uniforms, played between smoldering timber, their feet covered in soot and ash.
Most residents were watching the nightly news on television and eating their supper when the blaze began.
``We just saw smoke and someone shouted there is fire. We ran and we saw flames, big flames, really raging,'' said George Maina, a resident who was at his brother's one-room home when the fire started. ``We could not put down the fire because it became very big, very fast, because of the wind. The next thing I knew I was running for my life.''
The Nairobi fire department tried to fight the fire, but the trucks didn't arrive until at least an hour after the fire began, residents said. They then couldn't make it through the narrow walkways into the slum area.
