'No fault on our network’: Kenya Power distances itself from Endarasha fire

Kenya Power has come out to dismiss claims that the recent fire incident at Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri County where 21 pupils died was as a result of an electrical fault.

This comes following witness accounts that the fire was a result of an electrical fault, with one parent whose son survived the tragedy claiming that sparks from a bulb near the main door of the dormitory caused the inferno.

In a statement on Tuesday, the company however allayed fears that the deadly fire might have been caused by an electrical malfunction saying its teams have since established that everything was in place at the time of the tragedy.

“Based on the findings of the preliminary analysis of our protection system, from the meter box to the substation where the medium voltage line serving the school emanates from, we have ascertained there was no link between the cause of the fire and any fault on our network as alleged in sections of media reports,” read the statement.

Kenya Power went on to note that its personnel has established that on the night of the incident, the line supplying the school was stable and all installations were intact.

It stated that as soon as it received news of the fire, it took the initiative and switched off the power supply to the school as a precautionary ally measure, thus no electrical appliances were affected.

“As a company, electrical safety is of utmost priority in all our operations. Upon receiving the news of this fire incident, our team in Nyeri switched off the power supply to the school as a precautionary measure while handling fire incidences,” added the statement.

“The line supplying the school is a low voltage line from Mweiga sub-station. At the time when the fire incident occurred, supply was stable on this line with no reported incidences. All Kenya Power installations including the meter, supply cable, earthings, low voltage and high tension fuses, and the transformer were intact.”

It further stated: “The fire did not affect two prepaid meters located within the larger school’s complex. This was the case for all other adjacent customers supplied by the same transformer.”