By Reuben Mwambingu
Transportation of passengers across the Likoni channel has been temporarily halted to allow the Kenya Navy, Kenya Ports Authority officers and private rescue divers to get into the water and retrieve the bodies of Mariam Kigenda and her 4-year-old daughter, who drowned on Sunday.
K24 Digital understands that the temporary closure of the channel would last 30 minutes.
The Kenya Ferry Services managing director, Bakari Gowa, says Mariam’s body and that of her child, Amanda Mutheu, have been spotted 75 feet (23 meters) under the water surface.
The vehicle which they were travelling in, a Toyota Isis, has been located 173 feet (53 meters) below the water surface.
Last Sunday, Mariam’s vehicle plummeted into the Indian Ocean after it reversed while aboard MV Harambee, which was to dock on the Mombasa Island end from Kwale.
Mariam and her daughter were travelling back to Mombasa from their Kwale farm, where they had spent the weekend.
The Kenya Ferry Service (KFS) says it currently ferries over 300,000 pedestrians and more than 6,000 vehicles daily.
