A family is mourning the death of their seven-year-old daughter in a freak accident when she was hit by a pile of cooking gas cylinders in Nairobi's Kawangware area.
Pendo Mumbi Muoki, a PP2 pupil at Bridge International Academy, was walking home on Tuesday evening along Salim Road and passed near a shop with about 10 cylinders piled outside.
Suddenly the cylinders came tumbling down on her, crushing her to death. She was hit in the head and abdomen.
She was with her aunt.
Witnesses and police said the fall of the cylinders was apparently caused by a flat roller working on the road.
The owner of the shop said the rumbling equipment apparently caused at tremour at the shop, destabilising the cooking cylinders. The shop sells cylinders.
Nairobi police boss Augustine Nthumbi said officials from the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) were helping in the investigation, along with other experts.
He said handlers of gas cylinders are supposed to follow safety measures and move them carefully.
“The child was innocent and we are investigating how the unfortunate incident happened," he said.
The body was moved to a mortuary for an autopsy.
Meanwhile, a 24-year-old man was fatally electrocuted in Pipeline area.
The body of Vincent Agoro, a casual labourer, was found inside an underground water tank, which was near a live wire.
It is believed he fell into the water tank after the electrocution.
Police said he stayed alone and had asked the tank be emptied and washed.
Cases of electrocution, some fatal, have been increasing whenever it rains in informal areas, many due to illegal electrical connections.
The power supplier has been running a campaign on the dangers of the illegal connections.
(Edited by V. Graham)
