Twelfth victim of Embakasi gas explosion dies
Maria Nyangige at her house in Embakasi, Nairobi, on February 20, 2024. She passed away on February 21, 2023.
What you need to know:
- She died just a day after an interview with the Nation in which she complained that too many promises had been made to her and others, but nothing to show for it.
- She leaves behind a pre-school girl and a teenage son, whose future is uncertain following the death of their mother.
The twelfth victim of the Embakasi gas explosion has died of burns at Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital.
She died just a day after an interview with the Nation in which she complained that too many promises had been made to her and others, but nothing to show for it.
Maria Nyangige, a single mother of two who sold food and snacks in Mradi village in Embakasi, "rested last night", her son Peter Chacha confirmed.
She leaves behind a pre-school girl and a teenage son, whose future is uncertain following the death of their mother.
When the gas exploded on the night of 1 February, Maria Nyangige was on her way home from work. She had just finished making dough for the next day when the settlement erupted in a huge ball of flames.
A loud bang preceded a scene straight out of hell as orange flames streaked across the night sky, black smoke billowed and the air itself shimmered in the searing heat. She ran to her house, hoping to save her youngest child, but never made it.
Streaks of tears rolled uncontrollably down her cheeks as she recounted the harrowing experience of narrowly surviving a fire that ravaged the entire estate in a matter of seconds.
Nyagige recalled how her body was covered in fire. The pain was so excruciating, she said, that she could not move. She was burned from the neck down, her entire torso ravaged by the inferno.
That was the moment her life was shuttered. The fire seared the fabric that held her life together.
She was the breadwinner. Her entire livelihood depended on her health. But when she was bedridden, wounded, bandaged, and in pain, every bill she used to pay was in arrears – including rent and school fees.
Her family never lacked, she said. In her sunset days, however, she lacked even food and money to buy the painkillers she desperately needed to manage the pain. Her babies sometimes slept hungry, too. With her demise, the future of his babies now remains even more oblique.
Two days ago, a tearful Nyangige wondered if she would ever recover. More importantly, she worried if she would ever be able to pick up the pieces of her life that had been shattered.
"I don't know how long I will be in this state before I heal, or if I will ever get my life back to normal," she said during the interview.
"Before the fire, I was just healthy and never imagined that my family would be missing," a tearful Nyangige said, sobbing.
But what hurts her most is the fact that her life may never be normal again. Ever again.
After the life-threatening incident, her world was now confined to the walls of her single room.
After the fire, several humanitarian and government officials visited and made promises of financial aid and compensation. But they remained just that: empty promises.
On Friday evening, she breathed her last at the Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital. Three weeks ago, when the Nation highlighted the plight of patients from the Embakasi fire tragedy, Nairobi County dismissed the claims as not reflecting "the true situation at the hospital".
"Contrary to the insinuations of chaos and disarray, Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital has been functioning smoothly... There were no deaths at the hospital," said Health CEC Suzanne Silantoi in a press statement.
