A bus carrying mourners has collided with a truck on a major highway in southeastern Kenya, killing at least 24 people, police say. The crash happened in the Kanga area near Mtito Andei, on the road linking the capital, Nairobi, to the coastal city of Mombasa, at about 7:45am ( ) on Sunday, October 25. Another 24 people were injured, hospital officials said.
The deaths came just over three weeks after another crash on the highway killed 17 people, prompting fresh government promises to improve road safety. The bus belonged to Power of the Word Church International in Mombasa and was taking passengers home from their pastor’s funeral in western Kenya. They had stopped for breakfast shortly before the collision, according to one survivor.
The other vehicle was a truck transporting cement. Violet Mwandonyi, who survived the crash, told the on Sunday that she remembered passengers crying out for passing motorists to help. She said she did not know what had happened to her two children, who had been travelling on the bus.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. Makueni County Commissioner Abdullahi Khalif, the government’s senior administrator in the area, told Kenyan newspaper The Standard that the bus driver had tried to overtake several vehicles before colliding with an oncoming truck. Kenya’s National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) also identified dangerous overtaking as a possible cause.
Another survivor said the truck struck the bus from behind. On October 3, a crash involving several vehicles killed 17 people, most of them Catholic pilgrims travelling to a prayer site, near Salama on the same highway. Police said a truck driver had tried to overtake another truck before the collision.
The NTSA had identified that stretch of road as an area with a history of crashes. President William Ruto offered condolences on Sunday and ordered inspections of vehicles used for public transport. Transport Minister Davis Chirchir said the government would step up enforcement against speeding and unsafe overtaking, improve dangerous sections of road and strengthen training and checks for commercial drivers.
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