The Directorate of Criminal Investigations yesterday launched a probe into the Saturday night Naivasha tanker explosion that has claimed 43 lives.
Detectives from the DCI’s Homicide division went to the Chiromo Mortuary to get DNA samples from the bodies.
A tanker carrying flammable chemicals to Uganda rammed into vehicles in the Karai area and exploded, causing a fireball with 14 cars and their occupants being burnt in the inferno.
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National Disaster Operation Centre director Nathaniel Kigotho yesterday said chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor and his team have taken DNA samples from 28 families
and others will be collected.
He said the exercise will take at
least two weeks after which burial preparations can start.
The families have been asked to cooperate.
Kigotho said all the bodies must be DNA tested to ensure they are handed over to the right families.
“We are taking samples from close relatives - either the mother, brother or sister. We are hoping the exercise will progress well. What we feared has already happened as there is a body claimed by more than one family,” he said.
“We don’t want a repeat of what happened in the past where a body has had to be exhumed after it emerged it was buried by the wrong family and another remained here unclaimed.”
During the Garissa university attack a family buried the wrong body and it had to be exhumed after two months.
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The death toll from the Naivasha tragedy rose to 43 after two victims at the Kenyatta National Hospital and another admitted at Nairobi Hospital
succumbed to injuries.
One person is still recuperating at
the KNH and is responding well to treatment.
Kigotho said those who died at the hospitals will not be DNA tested as their families are already known.
One of five identifiable bodies was collected.
Twenty-nine peole people can only be identified by DNA testing. By
Monday, 18 DNA samples had been taken.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has warned the Ministry of Transport and the Kenya National Highways Authority against erecting road bumps without proper signage.
Addressing the nation during Jamhuri Day celebrations on Monday, he said, “The responsible organisations cannot go setting up bumps without proper signage because this puts the lives of everyone using the roads in danger.”