The county government of Nyeri has bought two modern fire engines to enhance its fire fighting capacity and disaster preparedness.
The engines will be in the country from Austria later this month, Governor Mutahi Kahiga said.
Some recently hired firemen are being trained before the arrival of the engines.
The national government chief mechanical engineer and the county chief fire officer, who had been sent to Austria to check on the machines, confirmed that the equipment is as per expectation.
The governor said the county is about to set up a disaster management unit at an initial cost of Sh10 million.
He spoke at Kiandu Secondary School in Tetu subcounty on Thursday where soil was being excavated from a latrine that had collapsed and killed three people.
“We would be lying to ourselves to say that we are prepared for disasters,” he said as he recalled recent misfortunes that have befallen the county.
The county, in collaboration with the Kenya Red Cross, will start conducting drills to test its disaster preparedness.
“We are also in the process of recruiting divers because we have lost our people to drowning,” the governor said.
“We also realise that we didn’t have divers in the county especially under our armpit and we had to seek services of private divers. This is something that we need to work on and identify the people and have them trained.”
He called on the national government to set up a regional response centre to address disasters.
