Thirty-seven bodies out of the 52 people who perished in the Londiani Junction Market road crash have been identified.
Londiani Sub-County Hospital Medical Superintendent, Collins Kipkoech said 18 bodies have been picked by relatives for burial arrangements at their respective homes even as tracing and identification continue in different hospitals that handled the casualties.
He said 49 people died at the Londiani hospital, two succumbed at the Kericho County Referral Hospital on Saturday while another one died at the Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital in Nakuru bringing the total deaths from the Friday evening accident to 52.
Kipkoech said seven of the identified bodies are awaiting post-mortem before they can be released to relatives while 12 have not been identified.
He said with a proper flow of information the identification process might be completed within the next two to three days.
“The hospitals appeal to the media and members of the public to spread the information about the unidentified bodies so that that the families can come forth,” said the Med-Sup who was accompanied by local leaders and senior officials from the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) and the national government.
He said KRCS heeded the appeal for a mobile mortuary and delivered a 20-feet freezer to ease congestion at the hospital morgue which has a capacity of 16 bodies only.
The medic also thanked the neighbouring Kercho, Kapkatet and Sigowet Sub-county for deploying their qualified morticians to the Londian Sub-County Hospital morgue to ease the work as the resident morticians were overwhelmed.
The accident occurred on Friday evening at about 6:00 pm when the driver of a long-distance truck lost control of his truck and ploughed into other vehicles including four Public Service Vehicles, saloon cars and a motorbike.
Traders who were selling farm produce at the roadside market were not spared as a number of them perished in the road crash.
Kipkoech said according to the autopsies, most of the victims died from crash injuries owing to the impact of the accident.
KRCS governor and board chairman, Geoffrey Kipngetich said the society alleviated suffering among the people, especially survivors, relatives and other early responders by offering psycho-social support, retrieving the bodies and cleaning the scene.
He thanked KRCS volunteers who have been on the scene for three days and promised that they would support the process until all the bodies were taken home.
“Being an auxiliary of the national and county government, KRCS will support this process to the end,” said Kipngetich who has two teams from the regional and national office on the ground.
He commended Kenyans for coming out in large numbers to donate blood saying that it will continue tomorrow in order to support the survivors.
Kipelion East MP, Joseph Cherorot appealed to the Kenya Power and Lighting Company to waive the electricity bills for Londiani Sub-County Hospital during this tragic period.
He observed that the mobile morgue was consuming huge amounts of electricity saying that the waiver should be in the spirit of sharing and solidarity.
