State To Take Care Of Endarasha Academy Victims Bills

The Government of kenya haspledged to settle both  funeral and medical expenses for the 21 pupils who unfortunatley  passed away  in the Endarasha Academy fire tragedy last Thursday.

This is according to Nyeri County Commissioner and acting Central Region Commissioner Pius Murugu has said this a contribution of the Government’s efforts to assist the parents who lost their sons in the devastating incident.

“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.”

 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 specialized treatment in 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 Four 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.