Search and rescue operations at the dam tragedy in Solai, Kenya has been called off close to 72 hours after the Patel dam burst its banks causing massive destruction.According to a statement from the command centre, as of Saturday evening, the government opted to scale down search and rescue operations of the victims after it accounted for all the missing persons.
The statement reads, ’The reconciliation of missing persons and recovered bodies showed that two names were repeated on the tracing list reducing the number of those missing to 38’’
Reports from the Kenya Red Cross put the number of those displaced to at least 500 families from the Nyakinyua and Energy villages. A spot check by CGTN reveals the continuous streaming of donations in the camp. The families seating in groups still trying to come to terms with the tragedy of monumental proportion that has brought them together at the Solai secondary school.
The physical identification desk at the center as of Saturday evening showed 16 people from those listed as missing as alive and were at the school.
‘’A further cross check was done for the remaining 22 at the Nakuru county mortuary and Nakuru county referral hospital mortuary .Relatives have identified 21 bodies. This left one person unaccounted for’ ’, according to the command center
The government now says it is working on assisting the affected families and has resorted to call off the search and rescue operations
‘’In view of this information’s, the search and rescue has been called off and the command center is focusing on assistance to those at the Solai Secondary school and burial preparations’’, says the statement.
Speaking to CGTN via phone, an official from the disasater management unit reveals that it still remains unclear when the rescue operations will end, this even as he says that the team is set to converge on Sunday to come up with a proper roadmap on assisting the affected families.
Meanwhile technical experts from the national and county government water departments and KDF are continuing to discharge water from one of the dams in Patel farm that is said to be unstructurally sound and unsafe.
