Shiundu NAIROBI, KENYA : Top government officials and the country’s emergency response teams turned to social media early Wednesday to give the country live updates about a massive inferno that was raging at Kenya’s biggest airport, the Jomo Kenya International Airport. Cabinet Secretary Francis Kimemia, Interior Principal Secretary Mutea Iringo, the Kenya Red Cross, and the National Disaster Operation Centre all gave live updates on Twitter about the extent of the fire and the emergency response in putting the fire out. The Director of Digital and New Media in the Office of the President, Mr Dennis Itumbi, also joined the buzz with updates about the “coordinated response from the military, Nairobi’s County government, the G4S”, plus other security companies, which had dispatched their fire engines to battle the inferno. The official twitter handle of the Ministry of Interior and Cordination (@InteriorKE) went live with hourly updates confirming the fire as early as six in the morning. It said the fire began shortly before 5am. The Kenya Red Cross had already tweeted about it and so had the Kenya Airports Authority. “We confirm that there is a fire at JKIA. International Arrivals Building affected," KAA tweeted. The authority also added that the Cabinet Secretary in charge of Transport and Infrastructure, Mr Michael Kamau, will be holding a briefing where details about the damage and the period of closure of the airport are expected to be released. He briefed the media and said the airport was closed. @InteriorKE also notified journalists and media houses about the raging inferno, with pointers that the immigration section had been “badly damaged”. Pleas for motorists to give way to emergency units also went out through the Twitter handle under the name of PS Iringo. “Apart from emergency landings, all flights into and out of JKIA have been canceled. Airport has been shut down,” the ministry of Interior tweeted some minutes after seven o’clock, just as Twitter went viral with pictures of the fire and hashtag #JKIAFire.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 09:57:31 +0000
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