Caleb Otieno: Remains of Thika man who boiled to death to be buried today

Caleb Otieno, the man who melted to ashes in a Thika steel plant, will be laid to rest at their rural home in Kogony, Kisumu county,  on Saturday, April 9.

The remains left a Thika morgue on Friday for Kisumu ahead of the burial.

Otieno was tasked with feeding metal pieces through a rolling mill into a blazing furnace.

While he threw some of the pieces in, on Friday, March 25, his gloves got stuck on the metals, making the mills pull him onto the unforgiving machine that crushed him into pieces before dropping him into the furnace.

His arms and head were the first to be crushed. Then his liquefied body got mixed up with the melted steel, leaving only countable bone particles at its base.

Thika sub-county DCIO Joseph Thuvi told the Star they visited the facility and collected ashes and particles that seemed like pieces of bones from the furnace.

Thuvi said they were treating the matter as a normal accident at a place of work.

The family is said to have been given a monthly stipend of Sh7,000 for five years in compensation by the company. 

This is a third of his net monthly salary of Sh21,000. He was employed on permanent terms and had worked for seven years. 

This translates to the lump sum figure of Sh420,000 that had been indicated by media reports. 

The family told the Star on Thursday that the owner of Blue Nile Rolling Mills told the family that this would be "the appropriate gesture of compensation."

Michael Orao, his counsin who has been speaking to the press on behalf of the family, told the Star that the company gave Otieno’s father Sh100,000 on March 27 when the family visited the factory.

The money helped them in affording accommodation and travel expenses.

In fact, Orao said, while the parents were still in a deep shock, the boss said that from then, he would consider Otieno's father as one of his employees and he would receive the stipend like every other employee on the payroll. 

Orao said the company directed the family to pursue “meaningful” compensation from the insurance company.