The government has promised to settle both medical and funeral expenses for the 21 pupils who perished in the Endarasha Academy fire tragedy last Thursday.
Nyeri County Commissioner and Acting Central Region Commissioner Pius Murugu has said this will form part of the government’s efforts to assist the parents who lost their sons in the devastating incident.
Murugu, who was speaking at the Kabiruini ASK showground yesterday after officiating the opening of this year’s Agricultural trade fair, said a multi-agency security team probing the real cause of the fire will soon fold camp to allow the reopening of the institution to learners.
“The government has taken the initiative to foot all medical bills and also provide burial expenses. We are also planning to have a memorial service for all the victims before we dispatch the bodies,” he said, adding, “We are still continuing to offer psychological and psychosocial support to the parents and everybody else affected by the tragedy.”
On Tuesday, Murugu confirmed that out of the 164 pupils who were sleeping in the doomed dormitory on that fateful Thursday night, only 19 perished, while two others died while receiving specialised treatment in the hospital.
The administrator has also set the records straight and confirmed that all the 164 boys who were in the ill-fated dormitory had been accounted for.
Earlier on, the number of boys who had been sleeping in the dormitory had been placed at 156.
The number of boarders in the school at the time was 330 pupils, with 166 of them being girls. The rest of the school’s population are day scholars. The school has a total of 824 pupils.
The county administrator also confirmed that all parents who lost their children in the fire had presented themselves at the Naromoru Level 4 hospital mortuary for the process of body identification.
He said the decision to move the bodies to the county morgue was to help expedite the process of carrying out DNA analysis and avert overwhelming staff at the Nyeri County Teaching and Referral Hospital.
“On Tuesday we were able to summon all the bereaved parents to come to the hospital where DNA samples were taken for the purpose of matching them with the bodies so that they can be identified by name. This process will take some time since some of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition,” he stated.
Investigators working at the school are yet to crack the riddle of what really caused the Thursday night deadly fire after Kenya Power ruled out an electric fault on Tuesday.
Nyeri Kenya Power Business manager Duncan Machuka said after conducting comprehensive investigations at the school power connections, it had been established that the cause of the fire lay elsewhere.
“Based on the findings of the preliminary analysis of our protection system, from the meter box to the substation where the medium voltage line serving the school emanates from, we have ascertained there was no link between the cause of the fire and any fault on our network as alleged in sections of media reports,” read part of his statement.
“The company will continue to work collaboratively with other investigating agencies to establish the cause of the fire,” he added.
The company’s investigations revealed the line supplying power to the school is a low-voltage line from Mweiga substation and that at the time of the incident the supply was stable.
Similarly, it has been verified that the utility power installations, including the meter, supply cable, earth wires, low-voltage and high-tension fuses, and the transformer, were intact.
Finally, the probe read, it has been established that the fire did not affect the two prepaid meters located within the larger school’s complex.
With this conclusion, attention now shifts to the power regulator, the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra), which is responsible for any power beyond the meter.
Machuka told the press his team will continue working hand in hand with other investigators at the site to come to the bottom of what caused the blaze.
“I am aware our regulator (Epra) is on the ground doing investigations, and we are working with them to ascertain that. We haven’t conclusively gone beyond that jurisdiction area, but we have ascertained that there was no link between the fire and our system,” said the official.
Preliminary speculations had zeroed in on a possible power failure, but a press statement from the Kenya Power has ruled that.
By Samuel Maina
