On the morning of Monday, March 26, 2001, Kenya woke up to devastating news after a fire razed down a dormitory at Kyanguli Secondary School in Machakos County killing 67 students and injuring many others leading to what counts as one of the country’s deadliest school tragedies.....CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
The tragedy made headlines throughout the world, forcing President Daniel Arap Moi, who ironically was accompanied by current President William Ruto, who was serving as the MP for Eldoret North at the time.
President Moi visited the school and made his way to the dormitory, entering through the same door that he proclaimed shouldn’t have been locked had the institution been proactive enough to avert the disaster.
Moi was briefed that the door had been locked from the outside, which ultimately ended up stopping the students from saving their lives.
The late president who was known to be meticulous took his time to study what had happened, once he had seen enough, he shook his head slightly as he left.
Speaking to the deceased families shortly after, President Moi ordered immediate investigations , instructing then-Education Minister Kalonzo Musyoka, the current Wiper Party leader, to ensure that the matter was addressed quickly.
It was at this moment that he inquired why the the dormitory had been locked.
“That door should have been opened one way or another, these children could easily have escaped,” he stated in what represents the most tangible quote that President Ruto can learn from.
All this while, Ruto followed Moi’s every step as the late president sought more answers.
Kyanguli School Fire & Lessons From Ruto
The Kyanguli School fire tragedy which occurred on the night of March 25, 2001, at Kyanguli Secondary School in Machakos County.
Two students, motivated by grievances over school fees and poor conditions, deliberately set fire to two dormitories.
The blaze quickly engulfed the buildings, resulting in the deaths of 67 boys who were trapped inside due to locked exits and overcrowding.
Because the bones could not be identified, the majority of the 67 victims were buried in six mass graves within the school grounds, with the remainder interred at their homes.
Subsequent investigations revealed serious lapses in safety protocols and emergency preparedness, such as inadequate fire-fighting equipment and poor dormitory design. For instance, it emerged that the ill-fated dormitories had grills on its windows and only one functional door.
The dormitory housed 146 boys at the time.
Ironically, the very same conclusions that investigators probing the incident at the time arrived at are the same conclusions Kenyans have arrived at following the school inferno that engulfed a dormitory at Hillside Endarasha in Nyeri County on Thursday.
The latest case led to the deaths of 18 pupils and left several others nursing serious injuries.
Bottomline: President William Ruto is no stranger to handling such tragedies and has the experience of dealing with calamity. Having learned from both tragedies, he should be in good standing to make sure that this does not happen again.
Meanwhile, the current president has announced 3 days of national mourning as investigations commence into the cause of the fire which claimed 18 innocent lives in Nyeri….CLICK HERE FOR MORE ARTICLE>>>
