A Form 4 student is among three passengers who died in a road accident at Kimende, Lari area of Kiambu county along the busy Nairobi-Nakuru highway on Tuesday.
Lari police commander Adamson Furaha said the accident involved a fuel tanker and a matatu which were heading to Nairobi.
Furaha added that, seven other passengers travelling in the matatu including its driver sustained critical injuries and were admitted at AIC Kijabe Hospital where they were taken by police and other motorists.
The police boss said the matatu had stopped to drop off a passenger when the speeding truck hit it from behind and pushed it into a ditch.
The driver of the tankers who was alone fled the scene.
“We have lost three passengers. One died on the spot and the other two died on arrival at the hospital. Seven others are receiving treatment,” Furaha said.
An eye witness Evanson Mwangi said the passenger had alighted and the matatu had started to move but the lorry failed to overtake it and rammed into it pushing it into the ditch.
“We were standing at the other side of the road. We only heard the tanker hooting and what followed was just a loud bang,” Mwangi said.
“We had to go and evacuate the screaming passengers. People came with axes to cut down some of the matatu parts since some passengers had been trapped. Motorists volunteered to take passengers to the hospital and within a few minutes, traffic police arrived,” Mwangi said.
Traffic police from Lari police station led by base commander Walter Kimini controlled vehicles along the highway as a traffic jam had started to build up.
The bodies were moved from Kijabe Hospital and taken to Uphome Funeral Home where postmortem will be conducted, Furaha said.
The wreckage of the vehicles were also towed to Lari police station where motor vehicle inspector will inspect the vehicles.
“We have embarked on investigations to establish the cause of the accident,” he said.
“We are urging our drivers to be careful while driving on the road so that we can reduce fatalities on the highway. Let us drive at a moderate speed that which one can control their vehicles in case anything happens along the highway,” Furaha said.
