Mudslide kills mother and her 4 children in Kakamega
Teams from Kakamega and Nandi counties were on their way to the village along the Nandi Escarpment to join recovery efforts. GOOGLE MAPS
What you need to know:
- It took the recovery team several hours to get to the scene due to the rugged terrain.
- An activist from neighbouring Mukomari Village in Kakamega East, Ms Everline Amahwa, said the rains had lasted for nearly six hours.
A mother and her four children died after their house was swept away by a mudslide while they were asleep in Mukhonje Village, on the Kakamega-Nandi border.
The mudslide is said to have been triggered by heavy rains on Friday night.
Villagers managed to retrieve the body of the woman and were still digging through the rubble to recover bodies of her children.
The Kakamega County police chief, Mr Tito Kilonzo, said teams from Kakamega and Nandi were on their way to the village along the Nandi Escarpment to join recovery efforts.
“We are on our way to the scene. Some villagers are busy trying to dig up the rubble and have managed to recover the body of a woman,” said Mr Kilonzi.
Details of the incident were sketchy as the village is in a remote part of the region. It took the recovery team several hours to get to the scene due to the torturous and rugged terrain.
An activist from neighbouring Mukomari Village in Kakamega East, Ms Everline Amahwa, said the rains had lasted for nearly six hours.
“Apart from mudslides, the region is prone to storms and lightning, which have left a trail of destruction in the last two years,” she said.
In 2007, eight people died at Khuvasali Village in Kakamega North when a mudslide swept away several homes along the escarpment. Following the incident, families living on the hills were asked to relocate to safer grounds.
But some families have continued to live and cultivate on the patchy and rocky farmlands along the stretch of the escarpment triggering mudslides.
