In a horrible Kenya crash, a truck driver kills 52 people when he ploughs through eight automobiles, many motorcycles, and roadside merchants and vendors.
President William Ruto expressed his sympathies after learning of the fatalities in a truck carrying a shipping container that drove off the road on Friday evening.
Kipchumba Murkomen, the Transport Minister, described the incident as “terrible and painful.”
Authorities reported on Saturday that 52 people were killed in one of Kenya’s bloodiest crashes in recent years, which involved a truck plowing into multiple vehicles and pedestrians.
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Rescuers are still working to clear the devastation left after a truck carrying a cargo container swerved out of control and collided with numerous other vehicles and people gathered at a prominent traffic junction on Friday evening, shocking the nation.
‘The toll has risen to 52 after three more people succumbed to their injuries in hospital,’ local police commander Geoffrey Mayek told AFP.
The accident happened at the Londiani intersection on a popular highway connecting the lakeside town of Nakuru and Kericho, which is noted for its lush tea plantations.
During a visit to the site, Transport Minister Kipchumba Murkomen assured reporters that new safety measures would be implemented in the aftermath of the ‘awful’ and ‘painful’ incident.
‘Investigations have begun to determine the reason for this tragedy, but we ask drivers to be cautious and observe the regulations,’ he said, adding that the truck was believed to be headed into Rwanda.
Rescuers had resumed their search for victims believed to be trapped beneath the wreckage, according to Rift Valley Regional Commissioner Abdi Hassan, but it was unclear whether the latest toll included bodies discovered from the site.
Hassan claimed that the truck rammed into private cars, minibuses, boda bodas (motorcycle taxis), and market booths at Londiani crossroads, injuring more than 30 people.
The truck driver perished, according to Kenyan television station Citizen TV, but this could not be independently confirmed.
Footage from the scene late Friday showed the wrecked wreckage of several vehicles, doors ripped off minibuses, and motorbikes smashed into shards of twisted metal, as rescuers worked in the dark under pouring rain.
On Saturday, big crowds gathered at the scene where the overturned container was trapped in a ditch, and debris, including car seats, mounds of fruit, a shattered axle, and even a lone black boot, was strewn across a large area.
‘The tragedy happened so quickly that many of them didn’t have time to flee,’ claimed one witness, Joel Rotich.
‘There was a lot of confusion because everyone was yelling and running following the collision.’
Kenyan politicians, including President William Ruto, expressed their sympathies following the disaster, and the name Londiani became trending on social media, with many individuals sharing somber images of a candle next to the word Londiani on Twitter.
‘The country mourns with the families who have lost loved ones,’ Ruto stated on Friday on his official Twitter page.
Murkomen stated that the government intended to arrange for street vendors to relocate from roadside areas to designated marketplaces in order to avoid similar disasters in the future.
He also advocated for improved safety precautions around the accident scene, such as speed bumps, and for long-distance truck drivers to take regular rest breaks and refresher classes.
According to the National Transport and Safety Authority of Kenya, at least 21,760 persons were engaged in traffic accidents last year, with 4,690 of them dying.
