The body of a 54-year-old man was on Tuesday retrieved from a vertical drain following the collapse of a makeshift video cafe on Sunday at Mwisho wa Matatu area in Bamburi, Mombasa County.
The Mombasa County Fire Brigade managed to pull out the body of Abdulaziz Abdalla from the 120-ft deep vertical drain at 0039hrs, barely half an hour past midnight.
Speaking to Baraka FM, Mombasa County Chief Fire Officer Ibrahim Abdalla Basafar said the body was handed over to the Deputy OCS Mjambere police station.
“We retrieved the body, washed the face, had the brother identify it before handing it over to the police. After the hand over, we went back to excavation operations because there was a claim that two people fell in when the makeshift video cafe collapsed,” said Basafar.
After excavating another 20-ft from the position of the first body and not finding anything, the Fire brigade concluded that only one body was trapped in the drain.
“It is not possible for two people who fell in at the same time to drift more than 20-ft deep apart. Before concluding, we checked with the OCS to see if there was a missing person report and there was none. We also confirmed with locals who had gathered there if any of their family members was missing and none came forward. Out of that, we arrived at the conclusion that no other body was trapped in the drain,” said CFO Basafar.
He urged the public to always report facts not hearsay when giving eye witness statements.
“The witness statements were misleading. Initially the claim was four bodies, then others came and said two. We are asking, who is the second person and where is his family?” he posed.
“Most of the time, people just want to appear like they have something to say, even when it is not factual,” he added.
Meanwhile, the County Fire Chief clarified that the makeshift video cafe collapsed into a vertical drain, not a septic tank as it was initially reported.
“There are three types of holes, a septic tank, soak pit, and vertical drain. When the incident was first reported, they said it was a septic tank. A septic tank has three – four outlets and is not that deep, can be 40-ft. A soak pit on the other hand is a bit bigger. It is deep, but not that deep, so we also ruled that out,” said Basafar.
“When we checked with the local community before embarking on the recovery process, they said it was an old drain belonging to the municipality and that simply meant it was a vertical drain,” he added.
A vertical drain is used to drain flood waters from our roads. It is usually 120-150ft deep. They are empty most of the time.
“When this incident happened, we realized there was an illegal connection to the vertical drain. I would like to urge Mombasa residents to, please, stop connecting sewage to vertical and storm water drains. You will cause calamities,” said the County Chief Fire Officer.