Multi-agency team to investigate Londiani accident – Murkomen

Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has said that a multi-agency team will investigate the Londiani accident that left over 50 people dead.

Speaking at the scene of the accident on Saturday, Murkomen said the team will comprise of the National Transport Safety Authority (NTSA), the police department and different ministries.

The CS said the cause of the accident in terms of the culprit truck condition had not been established adding that a team from the Traffic Police, Directorate of Criminal Investigations, NTSA were already on scene to collect all the data relating to vehicle for analysis.

Murkomen who described the Friday evening accident as the second worst after the Sachangwan tanker explosion said the truck which ploughed in to the other vehicles is registered in Rwanda, with a Rwandese driver and conductor.

“One cannot imagine that there is any situation in the past apart from Sachagwan where many people who were not in the same vehicle died in a single accident. This is huge and very painful to imagine,” he said

“Remember that this is a transit vehicle, it is assumed that it was going to Rwanda and the data about it do not end with the data collected on the Kenyan roads and we need the support of neighbouring countries to give more information about its status.”

The fate of the truck driver and his conductor are not known.

Eyewitnesses said the accident occurred on Friday evening at around 6:30pm when the truck driver lost control of his vehicle as he tried to avoid ramming into a stalled bus.

Murkomen also announced that all traders operating on immediate road reserves will be relocated to avoid a recurrence of similar accidents where stalled vehicles don’t have space to park outside the road.

He said the national government in collaboration with the counties would procure pieces of land near the roads to be developed as markets and settle all the traders operating along the main highways.

“Roadside markets is not peculiar to Londiani, it is a phenomenon in the country and the region, the markets are in different townships starting from Mombasa to Malaba and the government to move them to avoid a recurrence of such catastrophes,” he said.

He cited the Soko Mjinga market along the Nakuru-Nairobi Highway at Kinale in Limuru where traders were moved to a safer market close to the road to ensure their target clients could access them but some of them remained in the initial operating area.

Murkomen said his Ministry was ready to provide access roads complete with entry points from the main road and exit to ensure vehicles easily ferry passengers into the markets and back onto the highways.    BY THE STAR