A fuel tanker overturned at Lwandeti market, Kakamega, along the busy Eldoret-Malaba highway on Sunday, November 20.
Residents from the neighboring village along the highway thronged the scene of the accident to siphon fuel from a tanker which overturned at the shopping center.
In a video shared on social media by eyewitnesses, locals are seen rushing to the scene with jerrycans oblivious of the danger that lurked.
Another video shared on Twitter showed a uniformed police officer at the scene of the accident helplessly watching as people rushed to fetch oil from the overturned tanker.
Netizens expressed dismay towards the residents’ lack of caution despite the possibility of such actions leading to catastrophes.
“When will our people learn?” wondered Zaccheus Mwasame in a tweet with a video of residents looting the petrol from the overturned tanker.
“People are out there siphoning the spillage. I hope they remember the 2009 incident at Sachangwan,” Cedrick Siambi warned in a tweet.
Before the dualling of that stretch of the Nakuru-Eldoret highway, Sachangwan area in Nakuru county was a notorious black spot that claimed many lives.
Kenyans remember the place for the January 31, 2009 accident involving a fuel tanker where 111 people were killed and hundreds injured while trying to siphon fuel.
The stretch of the road at Lwandeti market is equally becoming an accident hotspot considering the number of accidents that have happened at the place.
In 2019, at least seven people were killed at the same spot when a 14-seater matatu hit a boda boda before colliding with an oncoming lorry.
Source: kENYANS.CO.KE