Man buried alive after quarry collapses

One person was killed and another injured after a quarry collapsed at Charuru village in Meru County.

It took about three hours for police and Red Cross volunteers to arrive at the scene and rush the injured man to hospital.

An earthmover was also brought in to help retrieve the body trapped under the rubble.

Francis Murungi, one of the miners who escaped unhurt, narrated that his life was saved after he lay flat and the boulder luckily rolled over his body.

“I was the first to arrive at the site this morning and immediately started my day’s job. After a while, I was joined by my colleague but shortly after we started working a huge boulder started rolling down towards our direction,” narrated Mr Murungi.

“It was rolling down so fast and I knew I stood no chance running against it so I lay flat on the same spot I was working and luckily it rolled over my body,” he said.

Murungi said he kept screaming loudly in an effort to alert his colleagues but they seemingly could not hear him.

After the debris had settled, two of his colleagues who had not yet entered the cave came to his rescue.

However, they could not find their other friend who got buried in the quarry.

Meru Deputy Governor Raphael Muriungi, who is also in charge of Disaster Management, asked miners to move away from the sites until the rains subside.

He urged National Environmental Management Authority, (NEMA) to certify quarries that are safe to work in and those that are not.

“I would like to urge the authorities to consider closing these quarries temporarily until miners have undergone sufficient training on mining safety measures,” he said.

On his part, Meru Red Cross Manager Gitonga Mugambi who coordinated the rescue mission said people living too close to vulnerable grounds should be relocated to safer grounds, adding that they had lost many lives to collapsing mines and other such incidents.

This is the fifth incident in six months where miners have been buried alive.

Last year, four quarries in different parts of Meru collapsed, trapping and killing miners.

Meanwhile, two people died Saturday evening in a grisly road accident involving three vehicles at Kwa V along the Nairobi-Nyeri Highway.

According to area residents, a lorry heading to Nairobi from Nyeri lost control and hit a smaller lorry (Canter) and a Prado vehicle heading to Nyeri.

The driver of the Canter was killed on the spot while his conductor died on his way to Sagana sub-County Hospital.

Three people travelling in the Prado sustained minor injuries while the trailer driver escaped unhurt.

The residents pleaded with the Kenya National Roads Authority to erect bumps between Makutano and Sagana to avoid the frequent accidents caused by over speeding vehicles.