[Kristie Lu Stout:] And welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet. Now a fire breaks out at Kenya's main international airport, shutting down all flights. Another family says their daughter was driven to suicide by online bullying. And a heatwave hits China. We'll see if there's any relief in sight. Now, Kenya's main airport is currently out of action after this massive fire engulfed its international terminal. Now this was the scene at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi earlier, flames and clouds of smoke shooting into the air. Now the blaze is said to be contained. And according to the Kenya airport's Twitter account, cargo and domestic flights will restart later. Now no word yet on when international flights might resume. Now the Kenyan government says security at the site has been increased. And journalist Nick Hughes joins us now with the latest from Nairobi. And Nick, what is the latest you're learning about the status of the airport?
[Nick Hughes, Journalist:] Yes, hi Kristie. The airport is the arrivals section of the international airport is in cinders. I don't know at this point how they're going to get normal service running anywhere in the near future. This has left thousands of passengers in Kenya, also in transit at other airports coming into Kenya in limbo. This is the high season of Kenyan tourism, with as I say, tens of thousands of tourists coming in every week. Now they're getting the cargo running, they're getting the local flights running, but this is the destruction of half of the international airport. And it's not just the airport for Kenya, it's the airport regionally Kristie.
[Lu Stout:] As you've been reporting, the blaze engulfed the entire international terminal. Have you been able to see any of the damage firsthand?
[Hughes:] No, I haven't. The airport at the moment is completely sealed off. Those journalist who got in earlier there. Now, the problem is that they're trying to get security and fire vehicles, they're trying to get the passengers who are at the airport back into town. This is closed off, in effect, the main artery for central Africa, and certainly the whole of Kenya, the road that runs from the coast into the capital here and then on. So not only the airport, but also the road is partly closed off. It's having far reaching far reaching effects indeed.
[Lu Stout:] And what are you starting to learn about what could have caused the fire? Now we've learned that there was recent construction on a duty free area in the international zone of the airport. Could that be a factor here?
[Hughes:] The fire reportedly was started at the immigration the immigration section at the desks there where people first get their passports stamped as they're coming into Kenya. That's on the first floor. Now there's no indication of any foul play well, the problem is that we don't know at all what caused this fire. And certainly we don't know why it wasn't controlled, why it was allowed to spread throughout the entire building and reduce the whole of the arrivals, which is a building unto itself, to cinders.
[Lu Stout:] Yeah very dramatic pictures there of the aftermath of the fire. Nick Hughes, reporter, joining us live on the line from Nairobi. Thank you so much for that. And Nick reporting just then that tens of thousands of international travelers are now in limbo as a result of the fire and the closure. Now the airport's closure, it could take a huge toll on Kenya's tourism industry and trade across Africa. And CNN's John Defterios is following that side of the story. He joins us now live from Abu Dhabi. And John, just how important is this airport to the Kenyan economy?
[John Defterios, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, they've prided themselves, Kristie, on trying to be an export hub for East Africa. First and foremost, it is the busiest airport in East Africa. And in fact, let's take a look at a graph here, it is the fourth busiest airport in Sub Sahara Africa, trailing behind Johannesburg, Cape Town, Legos, Nigeria, which is a much more populated country, and then you have Kenya. It's important for tourism. It's very important for the export sector. Now if we drill down into the Kenyan economy, for the last decade they've been driving up their exports into Europe and here into the Middle East as well. Tea is the number one export product. They're very big into flowers. In fact, a third of the flowers that are in the European Union come from Kenya alone. And of course, tourism is a key driver as well. If you break down those sectors, the tea and coffee, tourism and horticulture, you're looking at about $1 billion apiece. And the airport, Jomo Kenyatta, is crucial right across the board for all three of these sectors. So we don't want to overplay it at this juncture. We don't know if it's going to reopen and have full cargo facilities going forward. But Kenya has worked very hard in fact, other countries in East Africa and Sub Sahara Africa have tried to followed the Kenya model in terms of exports into Europe and into the faster growing economies of the Gulf States in the Middle East as well Kristie.
[Lu Stout:] OK, John. And hang tight, we're going to bring up some new pictures coming in from our affiliate there in Kenya, live pictures of what the international arrivals hall at that major airport in Nairobi looks like right now. Of course you can see the reporters on the scene. Earlier my producer was describing that smoke could still be seen rising from the airport. And there you see in the background there earlier. That section a critical section of the airport. Live pictures from our affiliate in Kenya right there of the international hall of this airport. It was engulfed in flames earlier. You can see attempts to dose it with water. It looks like a jet of water behind the reporter. And you can still see the smoke rising. Live pictures there from our affiliate of the aftermath of this huge fire at this major airport in Nairobi. John Defterios is joining us. We've been talking about the financial impact of this. And John, you know, you were mentioning earlier that there are a number of sectors that will be affected here as a result of this. Obviously the travel industry. You were mentioning tea, agriculture. Tell us more about the impact on tourism.
[Defterios:] Well, just the pictures alone, Kristie, you take a look at what's taking place here. And if you had in this peak season flights in your tourism packages booked into the country, obviously one would step back and say is it wise for me to go down here. In the back of our minds, of course and this is not confirmed, but this does hit on the 15th anniversary of the U.S. embassy bombing as well. So it's something that comes into the mind of the tourist that's looking to Kenya and to going into East Africa for a holiday. Let's take a look again at how important this sector is to the economy. It brings in, as I noted, just over a billion dollars a year in revenues, but that's been flat. And that's because Kenya has had its own set of challenges. They had the political uncertainty with the March elections. They had the terrorist attacks that have been sporadic with al Shabaab, which the government has taken a very heavy line against. And now you have this bombing or the fire at the airport as well. Arrivals at one point, 7 million, 8 million, with the estimate now 1.4 million for 2013, sliding again. But the government had a very large target, a very high target in 2015 of 3 million. So if you see in an incident like this, it's going to be challenging to try to hit that sort of target. And it is the second largest foreign exchange earner, just behind tea exports, the tourism sector. So they've had political setbacks, terrorist setbacks, and now a fire at the international terminal creating yet a new challenge for the government and the people of Kenya.
[Lu Stout:] Yeah. And this huge fire having a massive toll on Kenya's commerce and on Kenya's tourism industry. John Defterios, thank you very much indeed. And let's stay for just a moment on these live pictures from our affiliate there in Kenya as we're watching the reporter just walk through the scene of emergency services there in front of the international terminal where earlier a fire engulfed the entire international terminal of Nairobi's Kenyatta international airport this Wednesday, causing extensive damage, no injuries, no deaths as we've learned so far, and a potentially huge financial toll as we've been discussing with John Defterios on Kenya's tourism, agriculture, travel, and commerce. And there you see it, as the emergency workers there, the firefighters are dealing with these blazes, that they've engulfed the international terminal there in Nairobi earlier. Now you're watching News Stream. We'll continue to keep you up with the very latest on that story out of Kenya. But coming up next on the program, we know that foreigners are leaving Yemen over fears of a terror attack. And we'll tell you about the security situation there and the latest drone strikes. And meanwhile in China there's been a record setting heat wave. And it continues to bake large parts of the country. And we also have the tragic story of this 14-year-old girl who killed herself after her family says that she became a target of online bullying.