By Andrew Cawthorne and Duncan Miriri
NAIROBI (Reuters) - At least 15 people died and several dozen were missing after a fire destroyed a supermarket in downtown Nairobi.
"We have recovered 14 bodies," Joseph King'ori of the government's Disaster Operation Centre told reporters at the scene of Wednesday's blaze, which rescuers could not properly search until Friday for fear it would collapse.
"They are charred beyond recognition."
Another man died from injuries after leaping from an upper floor of the burning store of Nakumatt, the east African nation's leading supermarket chain, on Wednesday afternoon.
Forensic police and firemen picked their way carefully through the gutted, smouldering debris, placing small red flags on what they thought were human remains.
The Red Cross said 47 people had been reported missing after the fire. Those would include the 15 confirmed dead.
Several other people leapt from the building while it blazed for hours on Wednesday, witnesses said. Some spoke of people trapped and screaming behind locked doors.
"I came running because I knew my mum was shopping there," Ishmael Abdul Mohamed told Reuters amid a knot of angry people watching the rescue operation on Friday.
"They ordered all doors closed, no one to enter or leave. I was trying to break the window with a dustbin because my mum and my sister were trapped inside but someone cocked a gun at me."
"18TH CENTURY FIRE SERVICE"
Nakumatt managers, at a news conference on Friday, denied any doors were locked at the time of the blaze. A company statement said the store "was fully fire safety compliant and had been installed with advanced fire/smoke detectors."
Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki visited the scene, halting the recovery process for a short while. "We will do what we can to assist all those who are hurt by this tragedy. We should come out and help each other," he said.
Media berated the emergency response as slow and inadequate.
"A city like Nairobi with an estimated population of three million is served by one fire station situated close to the central business district where vehicular and pedestrian congestion is particularly heavy," the Daily Nation said.
"It is fair to say that ours is a modern city with an 18th century fire-fighting infrastructure."
One survivor, Jeremiah Omoyo, said he had jumped off the roof to escape. "The crowd below was telling us to jump," the Nakumatt employee told the local Standard newspaper.
"I jumped, but cannot tell what happened to the others who were screaming behind me," said Omoyo, who hurt his leg.
(Additional reporting by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Wangui Kanina, edited by Richard Meares)