NAIROBI, April 4: Massive boulders crashed onto houses on Wednesday in Mathare, a Nairobi slum, killing at least eight people after a night of heavy rains, police and the Kenyan Red Cross said.

"Eight people have died in this disaster. Six bodies were retrieved from under the rubble, another died on the way to hospital while the eighth died in hospital," a police officer involved in the rescue operation said.

Hopes of retrieving any more people alive from the rubble faded late in the afternoon after bulldozers cleared the site.

"We do not believe that there are any more bodies here," the head of the Kenyan disaster management service Vincent Anami said.

The Kenya Red Cross said rescue teams' efforts had been hampered by heavy rains, lack of appropriate machinery and crowds of people milling around. -AFP