Scores of passengers have been injured after a bus veered off the road and plunged into a river on the evening of Tuesday, October 7.
The bus flipped on its side on what appeared to be a riverbed during the incident, which happened at Waruku, off Waiyaki Way. Several people have reportedly died as a result of the incident, but Kenyans.co.ke has not been able to independently verify the reports.
Kenyans.co.ke has since established that the bus toppled into the Mashagusha stream in the Waruku Village area of Kileleshwa, Nairobi, which is a tributary of the Kitusuru River.
Nairobi Chief Officer for Environment Geoffrey Mosiria confirmed the incident, stating that the accident had left at least 30 people with serious injuries.
"A bus has plunged into a river at Waruku, off Waiyaki Way. Over 30 injured, with more than 20 at Riverside Medical Center," Mosiria said on his social media pages.
Images of the incident painted a worrying picture, as passers-by were among the first responders at the scene of the accident.
One of the key challenges during initial rescue operations was the fact that the bus was partially submerged in water, causing panic among some of the passengers trapped inside.
Since the bus lay on its side, injured passengers had to be evacuated through the windows, with civilians struggling to evacuate their colleagues.
At the time of publication of this article, no deaths had been confirmed, although scores sustained life-threatening injuries. The exact cause of the accident is also yet to be established.
This is the second incident involving a bus full of passengers losing control in Nairobi, coming just weeks after another bus accident claimed the life of one passenger along Jogoo Road.
At the time, it was reported that the speeding bus lost control, veered off the road and plunged into a ditch, killing one person on the spot.
The Waruku incident was also the second one on Tuesday in Nairobi, after a personal vehicle veered off an exit and overturned along the busy Thika Highway in the morning.
