Eight members of a family were killed in a fire at their house at Malindi High School, Kilifi County, , nearly 120 km northeast of Mombasa.
The school’s Deputy Principal Kilatya Kituku and his family were in the house when the three-bedroom house caught fire.
Detectives took away the bodies to Malindi District Hospital mortuary amid speculation the family could have died from suffocation.
The victims, who moved into the ill-fated house last Sunday, were burnt as students made desperate attempts to rescue them.
Rescue fighters recovered the bodies of the school’s deputy headmaster, Godfrey Kituku, his wife and four of their children at the blaze site. Two other children died on the way to hospital.
When the local fire brigade arrived, their efforts came to naught when their engines ran out of water. Principal Emannuel Kitsao said he was sleeping when he had screams an explosion and screams.
The cause of the explosion was not known, but reports indicate there were two motorcycles with fuel in their tanks and a gas cylinder in the house.
Mr Kitsao told The Standard On Saturday yesterday that on hearing the explosion, he rushed out of his house only to see fire in the deputy principal’s house.
He said he rushed to the dormitories and alerted the students who rushed to the scene with other teachers.
The students attempted to put of the fire before the fire fighters from Malindi Municipal Council arrived.
Students broke into one of the rooms and rescued two children who were rushed to Tawfiq hospital but died upon arrival.
Doctors said the two children died due to suffocation.
In a separate incident, a gas cylinder exploded at a restaurant at Nairobi’s Ngara area, causing a fire that raged through the building in no time.
At least 18 people were rushed to the Kenyatta National Hospital to receive treatment for the burns they suffered in the fire.
Saturday 6 October 2012
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