How army man came to rescue

• The blast came at a time when the country had no clear disaster rescue programme in place.
• Many of those who survived the blast were pulled out of the rubble by civilians in the first few hours.

In any discussion on the rescue operation following the August 7, 1998 bomb blast, the name of Major General George Agoyi will always crop up.

He is the man who took charge of the Okoa Maisha rescue effort and brought order to a hitherto haphazard operation.

Flat-footed

The blast came at a time when the country had no clear disaster rescue programme in place and caught the State apparatus flat-footed.

The slow reaction saw Kenyans rushing to the scene, contrary to standard rules of such operations.

Many of those who survived the blast were pulled out of the rubble by civilians in the first few hours.

“The rescue team was formed after the Government realised that the operation was not going according to plan,” said Maj-Gen Agoyi, now retired after serving for more than a decade“Initially there was no coordination about half a day after the blast,” he says.

Instructions were coming from all quarters — Police Headquarters, Office of the President and many others.

The Chief of General Staff appointed Maj-Gen Agoyi, one of the few military officers trained in disaster management in Britain and later India, to oversee the rescue efforts.
Alive

The Okoa Maisha Rescue Team comprising more than 2,000 officers from the General Service Unit, the Police Administration, Regular Police and the City Council was then formed.

It was only after this that the rescue effort took on a semblance of order and more people were rescued.

The operation also received a boost from American, Israeli and British experts with their sophisticated equipment.