Three children on Wednesday afternoon died when their wooden house caught fire in Kahembe village, Nyandarua county.
One of them was mentally handicapped.
Mother Sarah Wangari said she had gone to Kahembe trading centre to buy airtime, leaving her 15-year-old mentally handicapped son and two grandchildren aged six and three and a half locked in the house. There was no one else at home.
“Less than 15 minutes later, I received a call that my house was on fire. I took a motorbike and rushed back home only to find the main house, where the children were, collapsing,” she said.
Wangari said neighbours who first noticed the fire said it started from a workshop in their five-room house.
She said she had put out the fire in the kitchen, which is a few metres from the main house, and did not know how the fire could have started. The home is not connected to electricity.
“My son died in the room next to the workshop while my two grandchildren died in the far end, where it seems they were looking for a way out,” Wangari said.
Elder Elijah Mwai said nothing, including food, was salvaged.
He said efforts by residents to put out the fire were unsuccessful because of strong winds in the area. Mwai appealed to the government and well-wishers to help the family.
Nyandarua North deputy county commissioner Walter Ngaira visited the scene and said investigations to establish how the fire started are going on.
A postmortem was conducted at the scene and the bodies were taken for burial at Siberia public cemetery in Nyahururu town.
