Hundreds of traders at Mutundwa market are counting their losses after their property was gutted in an early morning fire.
Embakasi West MP Mark Mwenje revealed that the fire started at around 2am and was aggressive.
“Traders at Mutindwa Market have lost goods worth over Sh100 million following the 2 am inferno… Poleni sana watu wangu, we will assess the damage and we must rebuild,” he said in a statement.
Firefighters from the nearby Kangundo Road Fire Station were unable to contain the blaze an hour after it started, and were later joined by the Kenyan army, who were still extinguishing the remaining flames of the fire at 9am.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.
The Mutindwa fire comes just two days after a similar blaze at the popular Toi market in Kibera left hundreds of traders counting their losses.
In January, the Kenya Railways Corporation issued a notice to demolish illegal structures at Mutindwa market.
Kenya Railways asked vendors to vacate the area, which is on road reserves and less than three metres from the railway, to pave way for an access road to the station.
The market which borders Bidii Primary School and East School of Theology University has been demolished by successive Nairobi City administrations for various reasons.
The fire reportedly started at around 2am and took hours to put out, reducing the makeshift stalls to ashes and destroying property worth millions of shillings.
On Monday, detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) launched an investigation to establish the cause of the fire that gutted the entire Toi market.
Detectives arrived at the now flattened famous market and collected ash samples for analysis.
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja visited the market on Sunday and promised to help the more than 3,000 traders to rebuild their structures.
The open-air market, famous for used clothes, fresh produce, artefacts and toys, is located on the outskirts of Kibera slum, one of the biggest informal settlements in Africa.
The market with 3,500 stalls and more than 5,000 small-scale traders sits on a four-acre plot on Suna Road and there have been plans by the Nairobi City County government to erect modern houses on the parcel.
