One person died and three others were hospitalised following an accident that involved five long distance trucks at Koteko area near Malaba town. The early Saturday night accident that occurred minutes past midnight happened when one truck hit four others as it tried to overtake them before it caught fire.
The petroleum tanker driver was burnt to death while two others who were in container trucks sustained injuries and were rushed to Kocholia sub county hospital for treatment. One of the four drivers whose vehicle was completely destroyed by fire survived the accident unhurt, “I was on the queue when all of a sudden I heard a loud bang behind me. I found myself outside the truck, which caught fire immediately,” he narrated. The flame was put off after a while by fire brigades from Bungoma County.
Residents from the area and some truck drivers blamed police officers for the accident alleging that they take bribes from some truck drivers and allow them to get out of the queue and cut their way through, noting that it’s possible a situation like that led to the disaster. Teso North MP Hon. Oku Kaunya who was among the first people to reach the scene urged the government to expand the Malaba-Webuye road, “This road is very busy but narrow. There were plans to expand the road in 2014 but I don’t know what happened. There is a need to expand it so that such accidents don’t reoccur.”
