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17 die, 40 hurt in crash horror
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 08 July 2007 00:47
when two buses crashed head on. Others narrowly escaped death soon afterwards when a runaway tanker slammed into a breakdown lorry called to the scene, sending it careering into one of the wrecked buses.
It also hit a police Land Rover into which bodies from the original accident had been loaded for the journey to the mortuary.
The buses collided after one of them swerved into the path of the other while trying to avoid a lorry which had broken down in the middle of the road.
The accident happened on a hilly section of the Nakuru to Eldoret highway within the Mau Summit area in Molo, near Jogoo trading centre, 48 km from Nakuru town.
Although the crash was on Tuesday night, three passengers were still trapped in the buses the following morning, at 9 am yesterday.
One of the crashed buses, named Otange, was travelling to Kisii from Nairobi while the other, belonging to Linear, was heading in the opposite direction.
The Rift Valley Provincial Traffic Officer, Mr Duke Okemwa, said at the scene that 13 passengers - 11 from the Linear bus and two from Otange - died instantly. Seven of the injured were in critical condition.
He said the force of the collision sent the Linear bus flying off the road and through a muddy ditch before it finally stopped.
Molo police boss Pascal Okanyele said policemen and members of the public at the scene narrowly escaped death one hour later when a tanker left the road a few hundred metres from the accident, hurtled down and hit a breakdown lorry which in turn hit the Otange bus and the police Land Rover being used to transport the bodies to the mortuary.
One of the survivors, Pastor James Ombati of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Kisii, said he was travelling to Nairobi to collect documents from the immigration office so he could travel to India on Monday.
Pastor Ombati, who had several cuts in the right leg, said that an evangelist travelling with him died on arrival at Molo hospital.
The pastor said he was fast asleep when the crash happened and that he survived only because the force of the collision hurled him though the windscreen, landing on the grass .
Mr Robert Langat, who was in the Otange bus and suffered cuts to the head, said he was going to Kapkatet in Kericho district.
Mr Samuel Nyakundi, an employee of Beta Security of Nairobi, was on his way back to work. He was among those admitted at Molo hospital suffering from multiple injuries.
Mr Joseph Ojuka Okinda, an employee of Mugoya company, was travelling to Homa Bay from Nairobi.
