Thika factory fire leaves one dead, 17 injured.

Thika Level 5 Hospital Superintendent Patrick Nyaga (right) visits one of the fire victims at the ICU on Friday evening to ascertain his condition.

One person died and 17 others injured on Friday afternoon after a fire outbreak at a Thika manufacturing plant.

According to eyewitnesses’ accounts, the blaze at Junglenuts Macadamia factory broke out at around 3:30pm when one of the boilers burst into flames just a few seconds after the resumption of electricity following some power surge earlier in the afternoon.

They said that two among those injured sustained serious injuries with one of them succumbing to his injuries upon arrival at the Thika Level 5 Hospital.

“The two, both men, were the ones operating the machine when the accident occurred and therefore had the worst injuries. I hear that one of them has died on arrival at the hospital,” explained one of our sources.

The facility had about 200 workers at the time of the accident, most of whom managed to escape unscathed through the company’s security exits.

While responding to questions from the press, Joseph Murigi, the company’s Human Resource Manager (HR), said investigations were underway to establish the real course of the fire even though he pointed out that it might have been as a result of an electric power fault after some power surge.

Thika Level 5 Hospital Superintendent Patrick Nyaga confirmed of the death of one male patient on arrival at the hospital adding that only one victim was admitted in ICU.

Nyaga allayed fears that the victim was in danger saying that he had incurred about 20% burns as his case was mostly inhaling of the fumes and had the doctors had to detoxify his respiratory system from the smokes.

“We have received a total of 18 patients, 2 of them critically injured one of whom has just succumbed to his injuries as they arrived at the hospital. The other patient is in ICU with multiple injuries but in a stable condition,” said Dr. Nyaga.

The medical Superintendent added that the other 16 were in different stages of diagnosis and treatment but were all out of danger.

“Quite a number of them are just in shock and just need to be calmed down and allowed to go home. In fact, most of them are here with minor injuries gotten as they were trying to run away since they were not at the point of the accident,” he said.