A six-year-old minor was swept away and killed by flash floods in Longonot area of Naivasha following the ongoing rains.
Emotions ran high on Monday morning when the body was recovered in Kamore village hours after heavy rains in the neighbouring county of Nyandarua left a trail of destruction.
In the last couple of days parts of the town and its suburbs have recorded heavy rains flooding homes, roads and farms.
In the latest incident, heavy rains in Fly Over and Magumu towns on Saturday and Sunday led to the flash floods in the lower catchment areas.
According to elder John Kimani from Longonot, the area had recorded low levels of rainfall and the flash floods caught everyone by surprise.
He said that a group of minors was crossing a flooded path when one of them was swept off on Sunday afternoon as his colleagues watched in horror.
“We launched a major rescue operation which was unsuccessful until Monday morning when the body was recovered 10km away,” he said.
And in the nearby Mai Mahiu town, a middle-aged man who was digging a latrine suffocated after hitting a pocket of underground gases.
Efforts to rescue him were futile after he was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby health centre on Monday morning.
A witness, Joseph Njoroge, said two men had been hired to dig the 50ft latrine in Georgious estate when the incident occurred.
He said this was the third time a man had died in the area while digging a latrine, with the poisonous gases to blame.
“The man became unresponsive when inside the latrine and by the time he was pulled out of the latrine he was dead,” he said.
Naivasha OCPD Samuel Waweru confirmed both cases, saying the bodies had been collected and taken to the Naivasha sub-county hospital mortuary.
“We had an incident where we lost a minor due to the ongoing rains and a middle-aged man who suffocated in a latrine and inquest files have been opened in both cases,” he said.
