Nairobi, Kenya, Sep 10 – Kenya Power has ruled out an electrical fault as the cause of the fire that claimed the lives of 21 students at Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri last week.
Kenya Power in a statement asserted that it cut off power to the school immediately after learning of the fire incident.
“As a Company, electrical safety is of utmost priority in all our operations. Upon receiving the news of this fire incident, our team in Nyeri switched off power supply to the school as a precautionary measure while handling the fire incident,” read the statement in part.
It added that it had on that fateful daydeployed a technical team to the site for a preliminary analysis that established that the line supplying power to the school was a low-voltage line from Mweiga Substation, which was operating normally at the time of the incident, with no reported issues.
Additionally, Kenya Power says its installations including the meter, supply cables, earthing systems, and fuses were found intact.
According to the electrical service provider, the fire also did not affect the two prepaid meters located within the school’s complex or other nearby customers using the same transformer.
”Based on the findings of the preliminary analysis of our protection system, from the meter box to the substation where the medium voltage line serving the school emanates from, we have ascertained there was no link between the cause of the fire and any fault on our network as alleged in sections of media reports.”
On Thursday last week, fire razed down a dormitory housing the pupils claiming the lives of at least 21.
The fire, which broke out while the children were asleep in the dark of night.
On Monday, the scientific identification of the bodies of 19 pupils began at Narumoro Level 5 Hospital.
Central Regional Commissioner Pius Murugu announced that all 164 pupils who were in the affected dormitory have now been accounted for.
