38 students and 10 teachers cheated death on Friday, March 15 after a bus they were travelling in was involved in an accident at Nithi Bridge, in Tharaka Nithi County.
The students and teachers from Kitui County were travelling in the Itoleka Girls school bus, after participating in the ongoing Eastern Region Drama Festivals at Meru School in Meru County.
According to Nicholas Kitheka Muthoka, the driver, the bus experienced a brake system failure while descending the Nithi Bridge slope, forcing him to swerve the bus and crash it against the slopy meanders before getting to the bridge which is a black spot.
“The bus experienced a brake failure while descending the slope and I decided that it was better to veer off the slopy descent and crash the bus to avoid reaching the bridge. The bus had 38 students and 10 teachers on board at the time of the crash,” he said.
Several occupants who sustained minor injuries were rushed to Muthambi Sub County and Chuka County Referral Hospitals.
Nithi Bridge history
The accident comes in the wake of the process to re-engineer the “killer” bridge which officially commenced following a consultative meeting held between the County Government of Tharaka Nithi and the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) in February 2024.
Since its construction in 1983, the Nithi bridge has been associated with numerous fatal incidents, primarily attributed to its design featuring a downward approach and sharp curves. KeNHA has stressed the imperative need for redesigning the bridge to mitigate these accidents.
Spanning 50 meters, the bridge has been labelled a black spot due to the mountainous terrain between Marima and Mitheru markets, which are 3 kilometres apart, and its sharp curves, unsuitable for high speeds due to limited visibility.
Several measures for consideration include redirecting the road by upgrading the Old Marima Road to bitumen standard, constructing a new bridge, and reconfiguring the current one to eliminate hazardous curves.
During the 2022 election campaign, President William Ruto pledged to re-engineer the bridge within the first six months of office following a tragic accident involving a Modern Coast bus on July 24, 2022, which claimed 36 lives and injured 9 others.
Previous major accidents linked to the bridge occurred in August 2000, resulting in 45 fatalities and 27 injuries, and in 1998, claiming the lives of 56 individuals aboard a Stage Coach bus.
