Curious residents at the scene of the accident. [PHOTO|Leonard Wamalwa|West FM]

Three people have been confirmed dead as others are injured after the vehicle they were travelling in was involved in a road accident along the Kitale-Bungoma route near the district commissioner's residence.

Two of the deceased died on the spot while the third one died while undergoing treatment at the Kitale district hospital where others whose number is yet to be established are admitted.

Eyewitnesses and survivors said that the Canter vehicle that was headed for a funeral service in Budalangi Busia County had lost control after hitting a pothole and thus touched down on the sides at the side of the road.

"This vehicle was coming this way and there was no other vehicle coming ahead and when the driver reached here he lost control and ditched it at the roadside where it fell in a ditch at the road side," said a witness Evans Nyongesa.

He said that they tried to rescue the survivors immediately but the two a lady and a man had already died after the vehicle pinned them on the ground.

The witnesses however revealed that the vehicle was overloaded and the driver looked drunk and could not control the vehicle accordingly bearing on the overwhelming number of passengers on board.

"That vehicle was overloaded and in fact other passengers were sitting on top of it and the driver was completely drunk," said a witness.

The vehicle was on a convoy of a few other vehicles including a bus that was carrying the body that was being taken for burial in Budalangi.

They had come from Tuwani-Kisumu Ndogo estate within Kitale town after the deceased drowned in water in Uganda.

At the Kitale district hospital and the mortuary services came to a standstill after curious residents of Kitale town and others from the estates where the people on the vehicle had come from flocked the wards and the morgue wanting to know the whereabouts of their beloved ones, friends or relatives.

Following the crowding of the residents at the facility, hospital officials could not establish the exact number of the people who were admitted there and their condition.