Where are our people? Kin ask as state says all accounted for

Mystery abounds on the whereabouts of 40 victims of Solai dam tragedy whom the government says it has accounted for but family members says they haven’t seen.

As the third day of rescue operations that turned out zero returns wound up at dusk, Rift Valley Regional Coordinator Mwongo Chimwanga told a press briefing that the 38 missing persons they had been looking for had been accounted for.

At the rescue centre earlier in the day, traumatised victims received counseling from Kenya Red Cross personnel as they came to terms with the tragedy.

Joseph Gathongo, 30, told Sunday Standard his fruitless search for his fourth child has left him confused. Bodies of his three other children have already been recovered.

Gathongo and his family were swept by raging waters but he managed to escape as his four children were overpowered by the raging waters.

“I was overpowered by the water after it swept away my house. I was helpless as my children were swept, leaving me fighting for my life. We have already recovered three bodies and still searching for the fourth one. I don’t know whether he is alive or dead,” Gathongo says.

Esther Munai, 57, died as she rushed to rescue her four children from their semi-permanent house when the raging waters hit the village.

Paul Lokoro, Munai’s eldest son who is now camping at Solai Boys Secondary School, told Sunday Standard neighbours rushed to their rescue but his mother was unlucky.

“My mother was a brave woman. I salute her. She died a hero having rescued all my younger siblings. I will forever remember her. It was while rescuing them that she was overpowered by the water,” he said.

Margaret Muthoni, 33, escaped with her two children as the dam waters raged downhill.

Muthoni, a business woman at Solai market, said her children -- six-month-old Mercy Mogure and James Gichuru -- survived death by a whisker.

Muthoni heard a bang at 7.40pm, and within short period, water filled her house. During the melee to save themselves, one of her children got a fracture and is undergoing treatment at the Rift Valley Provincial Hospital.

Loud bang

She owned a two-acre parcel of land and had constructed a permanent house where she has lived for more than seven years.

“This was a horrific incident. I still cannot believe my house and entire property were swept away by the floods. I thank God that we are safe,” she said. Chimwanga said many of the people still unaccounted for have been recorded as missing only with one name, making it difficult to establish their whereabouts.

He said chiefs and assistant chiefs have been directed to draw up lists of survivors and the dead to establish those that are still missing.

The commissioner said the help desk has established that many households belonged to single people and reaching their next of kin is a challenge.

Neighbours have been asked to help identify families whose members were all killed by the waters.

“We need to identify the bodies at the mortuary and contact their relatives,” he said. Yesterday, the search was intensified downstream. Chimwanga said the multi-agency search team made up of Kenya Defence Force (KDF) soldiers, Kenya Red Cross Society personnel and Kenya Police will cover a 10-kilometre stretch from the tragedy’s epicentre.

The search party is also digging the mud along the flood’s path for bodies that could be buried in the mud.

The team is also clearing debris dumped by the water as it raced downstream. “The team has been moving to the valleys and we are hopeful we will retrieve bodies that might have been swept away,” he said.

The Wednesday night tragedy left the two villages of Energy and Nyakinyua bare, with members of the search team forced to wade through mud.

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