Rift Valley town totters on volcanic quicksand

By Karanja Njoroge and Victor Mukele

The most limiting factor to Nakuru’s development is its ecological location.

Particular environmental concerns arise from the relationship between Lake Nakuru National Park and residential and industrial expansion. The town is surrounded by national heritage sites into which no expansion can be allowed.

Urban development is squeezed in between the Menengai Crater to the north, Lake Nakuru to the south and the geologically identified volcanic fault lines to the west.

Although Nakuru, like other towns, is affected by rapid urbanisation, geologits have always warned that its physical expansion with buildings going up to ten storeys is a catastrophe in making.

Highly vulnerable

Rift Valley Provincial Geologist Enoch Kipseba says Nakuru is highly vulnerable to subsidence (sinking down of land from natural earth movement), landslides, earthquakes and related disasters.

Mr Kipseba says the town sits on unstable geological zones and experience subtle volcanic faulting.

Kipseba says the soil in Nakuru and its environs is unconsolidated as a result of past eruptions from the Menengai Crater.