Eye witnesses narrate horrific ordeal
ARUSHA: EYE witnesses have revealed shocking details about fatal road crash that involved four vehicles at Ngaramtoni Kibaoni Bypass area in Arusha Region on Saturday, killing 25 people.
The junction of the bypass and Arusha Namanga highway at Ngaramtoni area in Arumeru District was turned into a bloody scene, when a semi-trailer from Kenya heading to City centre tramped three vehicles following a brake failure.
The Commissioner of Operations and Training from the Police Force, CP Awadhi Haji said the crash involved four vehicles in a convoy.
He mentioned the vehicles as a truck (Mack) with registration number KAC943H and trailer with registration number ZF6778 owned by KAY Construction Company of Nairobi in Kenya. The other cars involved in the crash were a Nissan Caravan with registration number T623 CQF, Mercedes Benz (T879 DBY) and Toyota Coaster with registration number T673 DEW, owned by Arusha based New Vision School.
According to CP Awadhi, the people who died in the accident include 14 men, 10 women and one girl child, which make a total of 25 people killed in the crash. He said seven among those who succumbed to death are foreign nationals.
Regarding the 21 injured, he said that among them, 14 were men and seven were women. Commissioner Awadhi said that the initial cause of the crash was the brake failure of the truck. He said that the Police Force continues to search for the truck driver, who caused the crash so that legal action could be taken against him.
The Medical Officer of Mount Meru Regional Referral Hospital, Dr Alex Ernest said that he received 11 injured and 21 dead bodies after the crash. One of the survivors, Justin Juma a truck conductor, said his driver who was identified as Joseph Kiru, a Kenyan citizen, disappeared from the scene of the incident after the crash.
For those who witnessed the crash, the ordeal will keep evoking their memories. They said it was a tragic and horrific incident to witness.
“It was a shocking moment. The truck was accelerating at a high speed before hitting three vehicles on Arusha-Nairobi Road. I can’t explain because I witnessed people dying in front of my eyes,” said a shopkeeper, who owns a shop close to the scene of the crash, Ms Jakline Massawe.
“The incident was very scary. I was scared and thought that vehicles were rolling over towards my shop, I decided to flee to take cover into my shop’s store,” she said.
She said despite efforts by residents to rescue victims from wreckage of the mingled vehicles, it took about 15 to 20 minutes for ambulances to arrive to the scene. Another witness, Josia Jacob a motorist (bodadoda) rider said that the crash occurred after the driver of the mini bus drove straight into the main road without taking precautions.
“The truck swept away about three vehicles including a mini bus, Nissan Caravan and Mercedes Benz. All these vehicles had people onboard, but the coaster driver was supposed to take precautions before entering into the main road,” he said.
Erasto Mungaya, another eye witness said the mini bus driver failed to take precautions causing a fatal crash. He added “It was a fatal crash because all vehicles were smashed into pieces and many people died on the spot. We tried our best to rescue some people who were trapped in wreckages.” At the scene of the incident, witnesses revealed that some of the youths wanted to steal properties and belongings of the victims but they were contained.
However, others said they spotted many simcards at the scene. When visiting the victims at Arusha Regional Referral Hospital (Mount Meru) yesterday, Arusha Region Commissioner, John Mongella said that the government will foot all the costs to treat 21 injured and pay the funeral expenses of the 25 people who died in the crash.
He also said that the government has promised to give 1,000,000/- as a condolence to each family that suffered a tragedy due to accident.
