A bus transporting students from a prominent Kenyan institution crashed with a truck on a busy highway after slipping in heavy weather, killing 11 people and badly wounding 42, according to authorities.
The accident occurred Monday at 5:50 p.m. (2:50 GMT) at Maungu, 360 kilometres (220 miles) from Nairobi, while Kenyatta University students were heading to the coastal resort of Mombasa.
Ten people died on impact and another died later in hospital, police said, adding that 42 people were seriously injured.
“The driver of (the) university bus was overtaking a fleet of motor vehicles and as it was raining heavily, the bus skidded to the right side of the road,” according to the report.
It “prompted the driver of the truck to avoid a head-on collision, hence hitting the left side of the university bus,” according to the report.
The bus was carrying 58 passengers.
The injured were transferred to a hospital in the adjacent town of Voi, according to the Kenyan Red Cross on X (previously Twitter).
Road accidents are rampant in the East African country, where poor road conditions and traffic laws are frequently broken or ignored.
According to estimates from Kenya’s National Transport and Safety Authority, 4,324 people were killed and 18,561 injured in road accidents in 2023, a 7.8% decrease from the previous year.
However, the start of 2024 was deadly, with 536 individuals killed between January 1 and February 11, a 5% increase from the same period previous year.
On February 11, the 24-year-old world marathon record holder Kelvin Kiptum died as a result of the most publicised incident.