Rescue and recovery operations have been enhanced in Bamburi mwisho area in Kisauni Sub County within Mombasa after a septic tank caved in on Sunday.
Football fans were enjoying a thrilling soccer match between Manchester United FC and Wolves FC before the incident that saw two fans plunging into the septic tank.
While leading the rescue and recovery mission at the incident area on Sunday throughout Monday, Mombasa Disaster Preparedness and Management Chief Officer, Ibrahim Basafar said the septic tank is among the oldest of over 120 feet, which needed proper planning before the divers could plunge under and salvage whatever they could get.
“We have realised that the sewage chamber is so deep and over 60 feet underground we will need oxygen so it is a complicated task,” he noted while addressing journalists at the incident scene.
The first procedure was to remove all the contents in the sewage before even locating the two victims of the incident.
“Remember this is a sewage 120 feet deep, so we had to bring our exhauster to remove all the waste, an exercise that took us all night long from Sunday to Monday morning. So hopefully before Monday evening we will have retrieved the two people who plunged into this septic tank,” said Mr Basafar.
Dangerous mission
He adds that the rescue and recovery mission has been hampered by the relief of the area where the soils have been disintegrating further endangering even the lives of the disaster managers undertaking the mission.
“This is said to be an old septic tank than even the person operating the video café was not aware that it was built on top of the chambers. We need to take further action and assess the entire area to avert any similar incidents in the future,” added Basafar.
The accident area has been a bee-hive of activities since Sunday around 5pm when the incident was reporter.
Immediately it was reported the Mombasa County disaster preparedness department, it swung into action to salvage the situation.
The incident has revived past similar sad memories in Kisauni Subcounty.
In 2018 at least six people died after a septic tank caved in, in Mishomoroni are, Kisauni during a wedding ceremony.
