NAIVASHA, Kenya, March 22 (Xinhua) -- At least 11 people died on Friday when a public service vehicle collided head on with a truck near Nakuru town, located about 160 km northwest of the capital, Nairobi.
Local divisional police commander Emmanuel Opuru said the truck was over speeding when it lost control and collided with an oncoming public service vehicle, killing all the 11 passengers on board.
Opuru said that the driver of the truck that was heading to Nakuru was to blame for the early morning accident.
He said that the ill-fated truck first hit the minibus known locally as matatu, killing all the passengers before ramming into five other vehicles including a trailer along the highway.
"All the eleven passengers in the matatu that include six women and five men died on the spot while the driver of the truck escaped soon after the accident," he said.
The police officer added that passengers from other vehicles were not injured adding that they had launched a manhunt for the driver who fled the scene.
"The information we are getting is that the truck started swaying from one side of the road to the other before hitting the matatu and the other vehicles," the police boss said.
In 2017, a trailer lost control and rammed into a bus killing 20 people before another bus hit a lorry last year near the same area killing 18 people.
The Nairobi-Nakuru highway which is a strategic transport corridor linking Kenya to Uganda, South Sudan and the Great Lakes region, has in recent times experienced a spike in fatal accidents.
Police statistics indicate that an estimated 3,000 Kenyans die every year from road accidents which are blamed on over speeding and lethargic enforcement of traffic rules.
