Naivasha Bus Crash: Last Minute Change That Saved Woman's Life

Linah Mwende speaks to the press on Sunday, May 22, 2022.
Linah Mwende speaks to the press on Sunday, May 22, 2022.
Citizen Digital

A woman who attended the Kisii funeral is lucky to be alive after she escaped death by a whisker due to a last-minute change of plans.

Speaking to the press on Sunday, May 22, Linah Mwende disclosed that she was scheduled to board the ill-fated bus after the burial service to head back to her Naivasha workplace.

Plans, however, changed after she called her boss to allow her to extend her stay in Kisii to mourn her father-in-law Charles Onsongo whose burial she attended.

Luckily, her boss granted her permission and she did not board the bus which left the village on Friday, May 20.

Wreckage after a bus and a truck collided head-on along Mai Mahiu-Narok road on Sarurday, May 21, 2022.
Wreckage after a bus and a truck collided head-on along Mai Mahiu-Narok road on Saturday, May 21, 2022.
File

"The deceased was my father-in-law and I stayed behind to mourn him for a few more days. I called my boss and asked him to allow me to stay behind and travel back (to Naivasha) on Sunday," She stated.

Mwende lost her nanny in the grisly accident that claimed eight other lives.

News of the crash first surfaced in the wee hours of Saturday morning, May 21, following a head-on collision between the bus and a sand truck. The incident left nine people dead and several other nursing injuries.

For Anne Nyaboke, a resident of Kisii, the news, however, reached her later in the day after she received a phone call from her cousin informing her of the tragedy.

"When I woke up in the morning, I got a call from my cousin telling me that the bus which had departed from here was involved in an accident and that eight people had died," Nyaboke noted.

The Maai Mahiu dawn accident involved a bus that was heading to Naivasha from Kisii and a truck heading to Nairobi from Narok.

Data provided by the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) indicates that in 2022, more than 1,300 people have lost their lives in road accidents.

The 1,345 fatalities recorded since January 2022 translate to a 15.2 per cent increase when compared to the 1,168 deaths recorded over a similar period as of April 11, 2021.

Wreckage after a bus and a truck collided head-on along Mai Mahiu-Narok road on Sarurday, May 21, 2022.
Wreckage after a bus and a truck collided head-on along Mai Mahiu-Narok road on Saturday, May 21, 2022.
File
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