Long wait at the mortuary

• Relatives of Nakumatt Downtown fire victims tell of the agony of having to wait for hours at city morgue

He said he later heard a lady attendant telling a colleague that a fridge was abnormally hot.

“She asked him to check it and said she was going for lunch,” he said. “A few minutes later when I was at the counter, there was an explosion followed by a thick smoke”.

He said he pushed his daughter and ran outside as more explosions followed.

“People started running out, but a guard immediately closed the main exit,” he said. “I asked him why he had done so while people were burning inside.”

He said the guard told a crowd that was towards him that he had orders to keep the door closed. He said two people of Indian origin were let out and the door was closed again by the same guard.

“I saw them carry two blue bags as the second explosion occurred,” Mr Maiva said. Ismael Abdul, 18, said he struggled with a guard and told him his mother and sister were trapped inside the burning building.

“A guard wrestled me down when I told him my mum and sister were inside. He shoved me off and told me he had instructions not to open the door,” the young man said bitterly. He said he then called his sister and asked if she was okay.

“She said she wasn’t and that there was a lot of smoke,” he said. He has not seen her or his mother since.

Leyghton Jones Harraiah, a shopper, said an attendant stopped him as he ran out of the burning building and asked him if he had stolen anything.

“He held me by the shirt as I was running out,” he said. “He was saying I had stolen something.”

But Nakumatt staff denied the allegations. Patrick Gitonga, an attendant, said the doors were not locked. He explained that a colleague, Alexander Mangeli, went missing while helping shoppers out of the burning building.