HighWay Of Death.

Thursday, January 8, 1998 Published at 12:42 GMT

Despatches

Photo Courtesy Of Xinhua  News
Nairobi

Fifty-four people have been killed in Kenya when a bus skidded off a road and plunged into a river. The accident happened in the region of Meru, in the centre of the country. According to official radio, the road conditions had been made treacherous in the area because of heavy rain. The bus was reportedly owned by the local subsidiary of the British company Stagecoach. From Nairobi, our East Africa correspondent, Cathy Jenkins, reports:

The bus was on route from the central town of Meru to Nairobi when it apparently skidded on a steep section of the road and plunged into the river Nithi. Initial reports put the death toll at 30 but this has risen to 54, with many of the victims trapped inside the bus.

Official radio had said that road conditions in the area were treacherous because of recent bad weather. The El Nino effect in Kenya has caused torrential rains to continue well past the wet season.

But road conditions in Kenya are notoriously bad. Years of neglect have left roads in many areas pot-holed and in some places all but washed away.

And the accident rate due to bad driving is high. Buses are often badly maintained and loaded well over the limit with passengers and goods.
Source Cathy Jenkins

Ghosts Of Kobura

The Ghosts Of Kore-Kobura

Across the country in Nyando District, stories of ghosts and haunted places abound, especially in Kore and Kobura.

Kobura location borders the partly stalled Ahero Rice Irrigation Scheme on the Kisumu-Nairobi highway. A four-kilometre stretch on the Ahero-Lela road is widely believed to be haunted by ghosts. On this stretch, many grisly road accidents have been witnessed between Korowe trading centre and Lela Secondary School.

A resident of the area, Mark Ojwang’ Nyabange, says the accident jinx was caused by the deaths of an old woman and a child who were run over by a vehicle many years ago. The residents believe the large number of accidents are caused by the dead woman’s ghost, which keeps coming back to confuse motorists.

Villagers who go to assist accident victims claim to have been told by the drivers that they had seen a ghostly old lady cross the highway driving a herd of cattle just before the accident. Elsewhere, about two kilometres from the Nairobi highway towards Kore village, a ghost is said to haunt a bridge. It is claimed that many residents of the area, including a young man known as Joseph Omondi, have fallen victim to the ghost at the bridge.

Omondi recalls one night sometime back when he set out at night from his home near K’otieno Odongo village to visit his relatives in Kore. An architecture student at a Nairobi-based college, Omondi says when he approached the bridge he met an old woman clad in a buibui who requested for assistance.

"She pleaded for help to cross the bridge and I obliged, but by the time I crossed the bridge she had vanished," he said.

Villagers say the ghost often greets people in Dholuo: "Amosi swaya! Amosi swaya! (Warm greetings! Warm greetings!)." Additional sources Here

Mombasa Road Claims Its Due In Blood.

Kenya bus crash kills seventy

Seventy people have been killed in Kenya in one of the worst road accidents in the country's history.

Police said the crash took place when an overloaded bus was crushed between trucks as it tried to overtake on the main highway linking the capital, Nairobi, and the port city of Mombasa.

Many more people were injured, and were ferried to hospital.

A BBC correspondent who visited the scene, says emergency services did not arrive quickly, but once underway, the rescue effort was well-co-ordinated. The accident comes just three weeks another bus crash claimed the lives of more than seventy people, making it the country's worst road accident.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

Nithi Blackspot Leaves 45 Dead.

Friday, 25 August, 2000.


Kenya bus hurtles into river

The latest in a spate of major transport accidents

At least 45 people were killed on Thursday when a bus plunged off a bridge into a river in eastern Kenya.

The bus was travelling to the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa when the accident happened on Thursday evening.


The high bridge which spans the Nithi river in eastern Kenya is a notorious black spot: at least 158 people have now died there in the past five years.

The bus involved in the latest accident ploughed over the edge of the bridge into the water below.

At least 27 people survived. They were rushed 30km to a mission hospital, the nearest place where they could receive treatment.

Police fear the death toll will rise because some victims may still be trapped in the wreckage.

The bus had an official capacity of 65 but it was believed to be carrying at least 80 passengers.

Greedy drivers blamed

Speeding and overloading on buses is a common problem in Kenya where regulations are often ignored and passengers are squeezed into every available space so that the bus operators get the maximum profit.

Two years ago, 56 people died in a similar incident at the bridge.

Kenya has been hit by a spate of transport disasters over the past few weeks.

Six days ago a train laden with gas exploded near Nairobi, killing 29 people.

The previous week at least 10 people died when a passenger train derailed in western Kenya
Courtesy of Cathy Jenkins The BBC