Eleven people perished on the spot Thursday morning when a Nairobi bound matatu collided head-on with a truck at Quarry area along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway.
The 11 were in the matatu when it was hit and dragged for about 40-metres and squeezed into a roadside embankment.
Koibatek
Sub-County Commissioner, Samson Irungu said they rushed to the scene
but were shocked to find 11 occupants in the matatu had perished and
were trapped inside the vehicle.
However one person, Joseph Chigu Otieno, survived the accident.
“The
lorry was loaded with twisted iron rods that made its momentum
dangerous. When it lost control and swerved to the right it hit the
matatu and pushed it forty metres off the road before coming to a halt
when the two vehicles hit a side embankment.
"All the
victims had multiple fractures and rescuers had a difficult time pulling
the two vehicles apart in the hope of finding a survivor,” Mr Irungu
said.
Koibatek Divisional Police Commander Bernard
Kibe said a manhunt had been launched for the lorry driver and the turn
boy who vanished from the scene immediately after the accident.
A
third person who was in the lorry’s cabin said he heard a loud bang and
the cabin tore off from the main body before it came to a halt thirty
metres away.
The driver and the conductor vanished
from the scene leaving a shocked Mr Okube, a Malaba-based second hand
clothes dealer at the scene.
“I was asleep when I heard the driver yell ‘Mungu wangu’ (My Lord) and this was followed by a loud bang.
When
I regained consciousness, blood was oozing from my forehead and before
me was a mangled wreck of a matatu with its occupants dead,” he said.
Mr
Okube said he had boarded the trailer at 9pm at Kangemi area along the
Nakuru-Nairobi highway and paid Sh1,000 as fare from Nairobi to Malaba
for him and his goods - two bundles of new jackets.
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