Mwatate accident survivor recounts moments before bus crash, claims driver was taking drugs

The Saturday night accident happened after a bus carrying a group of mourners travelling to Mombasa after attending a funeral in Mghambonyi overturned. 

Dominic Onyango, is among those who escaped death by a whisker and were rushed to different hospitals in Mwatate and Voi to receive treatment. 

“When we were at Wundanyi, we took the first corner…second…on the third one, the driver started speeding. I thought he would be able to stop it but he could not. The bus fell on the right side,” he recalls. 

“He looked a bit drunk. He had bought packets of 10 packets of Muguka and 2 packets of cigarettes in the morning. We hit the wall and the bus rolled three times.”

Onyango was on the bus with his siblings, who lost lives and some were seriously injured. 

“We were 5 family members in there… my brother who is unable to speak now, my sisters died instantly, I pulled them…there is my in-law too,” he told Citizen TV. 

While nine died on the spot, four others succumbed to injuries in various hospitals. 

Taita Taveta County Governor Andrew Mwadime, who visited the survivors in hospital, hailed the multiagency response to the incident but was quick to call for urgent action to erect speed bumps at the section of the road which he says has turned into a black spot

“That is a blackspot, I would like KENHA to review the road. If possible, erect bumps and a protective wall,” he said. 

In the meantime, the Inspector General of Police Japheth Koome has warned of tough measures to be taken to tame careless driving. 

“Long distance drivers are being overworked that is something that we have discovered all these accidents are as a result of carelessness and that is something that we want to address,” he said in a press address on Sunday. 

The bodies of the 13 people who perished are being preserved at the Moi County Referral Hospital mortuary in Voi.