At least forty passengers have been have been rushed to hospital after sustaining serious injuries when a bus they were travelling in veered off the road and landed in a ditch near Kapkwen trading centre in Bomet County.
The Classic Coach bus was heading to Kisii from Nairobi on Sunday evening when the accident occured. Eight of the injured passengers were rushed to Tenwek hospital for specialized treatment while others who had minor injuries were treated and discharged.
Bomet Central sub county Police Commander Musa Imamai confirmed the incident, saying 32 passengers with minor injuries were treated and discharged from the hospital.
“The bus is said to have swerved to avoid a head-on collision with a motor vehicle that was travelling towards Bomet from Kaplong when the accident occurred. The bus overturned and landed on its side,” Mr Imamai said.
“Some of the [passengers] had cuts from broken glass, while others had bruises in various parts of the body. A few others are still undergoing observation, but I think they will be discharged in due course,” said a doctor, who did not want to be named because he did not have the authority to speak to reporters.
Mr Stanley Mutai, a Bomet County senior disaster management officer, said the accident occurred at around 4pm.
Passengers who escaped without injuries were stranded at the scene of the accident for several hours and braved rain as they waited for alternative transport to their destinations.
Members of the public, motorists and county disaster management workers took part in rescuing passengers.
The area has been the scene of accidents before, with residents urging the Kenya National Highway Authority (Kenha) to erect pumps there so as to slow down motorists.
The wreckage of the bus was towed to the Bomet Police Station in an operation that lasted almost an hour, causing a traffic snarl-up on the Bomet-Kisii highway.
This comes barely six day after another bus ferrying passengers to Mombasa from Meru loss control and crushed into Nithi bridge killing more than 30 passengers.
The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) halted the operations of all Modern Coast buses following the accident.
In a statement released on Monday, July 25, the authority announced that it had launched investigations following the tragic accident that claimed at least 34 lives on Sunday, July 24. The suspension affects 31 buses plying all the seven routes across the country.
The accident happened just a month after National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) released a report on the increasing number of deaths following road accidents.
According to NTSA, about 2,211 have died on Kenyan roads between January and June this year, compared to 1,988 who died around the same time in 2021.
Some 608 motorcyclists died in the same period this year as compared to 569 in 2021, while 362 passengers died in the past six months as compared to the 326 in 2021.
The number of drivers who have died from accidents remained constant at 210.
788 pedestrians have died between January and June this year as compared to 651 last year.
Pillion passengers who have died have increased to 211 compared to the 182 who died in 2021.
32 pedal cyclists died in the period as compared to 50 who perished last year.
Speeding, according to police, has been the main cause of the crashes.
Reckless driving, dangerous overtaking, drunk driving, drunk walking, drunk riding, and failure to use helmets among other issues have also been attributed to the increase in crashes.
