A fire burned part of Kitui County Government offices on Sunday and destroyed property worth millions of shillings.
The fire, which reportedly broke out at around midnight, destroyed the offices which are housed at the former Tourist Hotel building.
The building housed the ministries of Environment and Natural Resources, Tourism, Sports and Culture and Education and Youth Affairs.
The departments of Human Resources, Administration and Co-ordination also operated from the building.
"The affected offices are those belonging to the ministries of Education, Tourism and Environment," a statement from governor Charity Ngilu's press service said.
It said the Education office reception, a store as well as part of the Human Resource Registry were partially damaged.
The value of the property that was damaged
was not established immediately.
According to security guards, the fire started on second floor where offices belonging to the ministries of Environment and Tourism were located.
They said the fire then spread to the entire building all through to the ground floor at the human resource office.
According to the statement, senior government officials and the police visited the scene and helped coordinate efforts to put out the fire at around 4 am.
“Hundreds of wananchi and county officers had battled the fire and brought it under control using county government water bowsers.”
It said Kitui Central Deputy County Commissioner Otieno Odidi led a team of security officers to the scene and launched investigations.
A bill on the county's disaster preparedness is apparently pending before the Kitui County Assembly awaiting passage.
The statement said the County Emergency Fund Bill was drafted and submitted before the county assembly in November last year.
This was after assessments found the county's disaster preparedness to be wanting.