Five killed, 18 injured in Emali road crash

Wreckage of the Mombasa-bound vehicle that collided head on with a lorry at Emali, along Mombasa-Nairobi highway. (Photo:Standard)

By Onesmus Nzioka

Makueni, Kenya: Five people Saturday perished in yet another grisly accident near Sultan Hamud after the bus they were travelling in collided with a Canter.

According to Makindu OCPD Joseph Omijah, the accident occurred at around 11.30pm Saturday, between Emali and Sultan Hamud when the two vehicles collided head on.

Drivers of both vehicles and one other passenger died on the spot, while two others died while undergoing treatment at Kilome nursing home in Emali.

Two people suffered severe head injuries while 16 others sustained minor injuries. The injured were rushed to Makindu Level 4 hospital, one of them has since been referred to Kenyatta National Hospital in critical condition.

Among the injured was a 6-month child who suffered a leg fracture, her mother Halima Hamisi who suffered ear bruise. Halima was travelling with her two children from Nakuru to Mombasa.

When The Standard visited Kilome nursing home, the 6-month old child’s wails filled the hospital, ostensibly from the deep pain she was undergoing. Her sister and mother stood by her in pitiable looks while nurses attended to her.

Omijah said preliminary investigations revealed that the bus, belonging to 2NK Sacco, that was headed to Mombasa was trying to overtake another vehicle when it rammed into the canter headed to Nairobi.

Ms Halima who survived the accident said the vehicle had left Nakuru 7pm, adding that passengers on board had complained about the driver’s reckless driving but the driver ignored them.

“We started complaining about the driver’s careless driving at Naivasha after noticing how he was overtaking carelessly. We complained all the way until the accident occurred,” said Halima.

Another survivor Diba Ndegwa said the vehicle nearly avoided a crash at sultan Hamud when the driver overtook five other vehicles ignoring vehicles coming from the opposite direction.

Ndegwa said the journey had become frightening, and that he only realised the vehicle had crashed after noticing rice spilling into the bus from the canter they had collided with.

A rescuer from St.John’s Ambulance Titus Matheka said rescue operations were hampered by heavy downpour pounding the area at the time of the accident.

The Sultan Hamud section of the Nairobi-Mombasa highway has recently been on the spot over a spate of ghastly accidents that have left more than 23 people dead in the past two weeks.