The night hell descended on Baringo village

 

By Vincent Mabatuk

Timbwoiyo village in Central Baringo is usually serene. Villagers go about their daily businesses without worry. But last Friday night, this peaceful life was turned upside down when the ground on which the people stood rumbled.

Then a disturbingly rapid movement.

When the residents peeked to find out what was happening, they were horrified by what they saw. Rocks, soil, crops, logs, tree branches and leaves, among other debris were moving downhill with lightning speed.

“Hell had come to the village,” a resident recounted what he saw in an interview with The Standard.

Time to run
They knew it was time to run away from their village on the slopes of the Tugen Hills as it was no longer habitable. The question was how to navigate the soggy grounds.

This season, the residents were sure of a bumper harvest, but as they fled from their homes, they saw what used to be their farms buried under tonnes of mud, huge trees and stones. Their fruitful harvest was gone with the heavy rain.

There was no time to count losses as the first priority was to get to safety.
Some have camped at relatives’ homes away from the village while others have sought refugee in primary schools which are deemed to be safe for now.

While safety is now their main concern, for  William Kipchumba what hit the village most is a painful personal loss.

Kipchumba, a teacher at one of the local schools, lost his 12-year-old son after boulders swept through the family kitchen where the Standard Four pupil was warming himself by the fireplace.

The boy had been rained on and decided to warm himself by the fire for a few minutes before joining the rest of the family for supper in the main house.

“I heard a loud bang and thought it was an accident. I am used to that kind of noise as my house is next to the road. When I went outside to check, I saw trees moving at high speed and what used to be the kitchen rolling down the valley, ” a tearful Kipchumba told The Standard.

He crossed his fingers praying that his son had escaped the horror. Unfortunately, the boy had been swept away too.

A cow, the family’s maize store and a toilet were also floored during the 7.30pm incident that left the entire village in shock.

Like his fellow villagers, Kipchumba only managed to take his family to higher grounds leaving everything behind. Of course, nothing was spared in the flowing mud.

Gideon Chesire, a Form One student at Kapkawa Secondary School, was also heading home with his donkey after 7pm when the vicious mudslide swept him away along wiht his donkey.

As the two boys’ families mourn the tragic loss, in a neighbouring village, loved ones are worried about the fate of two people said to be missing after their houses were swept away by the furious water.

At Kapsinet, about 2km away, another teacher, Philip Kipkorir, lost his permanent house worth more than Sh3.3 million to the landslides.

Luckily, the incident took place at 3.30am when everybody had fled the homestead.

The walls and roof of his permanent house were completely submerged in rock-strewn mud.

Nowhere to go
Two other permanent homes have been completely destroyed leaving sections of the walls hanging precariously.

Other residents have been forced to pull down their buildings after the land around them sunk, leaving the structures suspended.

“Where can I go now? Where will I get a farm to tend?” posed Wilson Kimoriot, one of the mudslides victims.

Those who managed to escape from the disaster say they heard unusual movements in the night with reverberating sounds, shaking and moving furniture in the house.

The villagers of Timboiywo now say some supernatural power visited them. The gods must be unhappy with something they did, they said.

Their land is fertile and they rarely go hungry as they farm and reap plenty every season.

Good yields
This year, they had planted maize, beans, millet, tomatoes and other food crops on the onset of the rains and the crops were healthy, promising good yields.

They looked forward to harvest time when they could supply fresh produce to neighbouring towns such as Kabarnet.

With the heavy rains, this routine is no more. The villagers have run for their lives to  other places such as Kibasis, Cheptogol and Kapkorobo and will now have to deal with basic needs like shelter and food.

Those who left everything behind sometimes find their way back to the village to feed their animals that survived the landslide but this is risky as the rains are still heavy.

In fact, the access to their village has been cut as part of the road has been blocked by huge boulders that were swept from the hills.
The area councillor, Zakaria Kipruto, says the area under threat was occupied by some 60 families and since it has become inhabitable, it should be transformed into a forest and grazing land.

Michael Kipsang, who says he was born in the area in 1950, says it is not the first time landslides have affected the area — there were landslides in 1961 and 1997.

“In 1961, we lost our crops and animals after the land sunk. Houses were damaged but it was nothing compared to this one,” he recalled.

The El Nino-induced rains caused havoc in 1997 and houses houses collapsed. But after the rains the locals returned. They say they have nowhwere else to go since this is their ancenstral land.  They aren’t ready to move.
Danger may be looming, but locals insist they are occupying their ancestral land and can’t just walk away.