Blaze shuts Nairobi airport Massive disruption: the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport goes up in flames, in Kenya's capital Nairobi. Kenya has closed its main international airport in Nairobi, sub-Saharan Africa's fourth-busiest and a key trading hub for the region, after a pre-dawn fire engulfed the facility, the airports authority said. Passengers and staff at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport were evacuated and flights diverted to other cities, the Nairobi-based Kenya Airports Authority said in a statement on its Twitter feed. Firefighters battled the blaze for about five hours before it was contained. The fire was "massive," Mutea Iringo, principal secretary at the Ministry of Interior and Co-ordination of National Government, said in a statement. Arrivals and immigration are totally damaged. The airport has been closed down. Kenya supplies a third of the fresh flowers sold in Europe and relies on horticulture exports to generate 90 billion shillings ($1 billion) of foreign-exchange earnings annually. The airport has the capacity to handle 200,000 metric tons of cargo annually, including farm goods worth about $3.6 million a day, according to data from the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya. The fire was detected at about 5am during a busy time for traffic at the airport, Transport Secretary Michael Kamau said at a press briefing broadcast by closely held KTN television. It's peak season for tourism in Kenya, which relies on the industry to generate millions of revenue a year, its second-biggest source of foreign exchange. "Security has been heightened," Interior Secretary Joseph Ole Lenku, said during the press briefing. We recognise the central role the airport plays to this economy. The Kenya Red Cross posted a photo on its Twitter feed earlier showing a building at the airport engulfed in flames, with black smoke billowing from it. A subsequent photo displayed the blackened, gutted interior with part of the roof caved in. Inbound flights have been re-routed to cities including the port of Mombasa and Eldoret, in the country's north-west, Mr Iringo said. Outbound flights have been grounded as fire crews in the city fight to extinguish the blaze. Kenya Airways Ltd., sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest airline by passenger numbers, has canceled all flights. The fire broke out on the 15th anniversary of an attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi in which 224 people died. "The cause of the fire is not known, as I said we are investigating," Mr Kamau said. Bloomberg, Agence France-Presse