Kamutharaka the death trap

By Carlos mutua

When the name ‘Kamutharaka’ is mentioned to Kyuso residents not only the neighboring tribe that comes in the mind but grievance for the death of the beloved ones. It is the name given to one of the catchment area of the Kyuso location. It is the dam built on the eastside of Kyuso rock next to ‘Mbwani’ earth dam.  

 It used to supplies clean water to the Kyuso community for all domestic uses in the nineties; elderly say that the catchment bore the name ‘kamuthalaka’ after a man from Tharaka community drown when bathing hence the name. Then followed a series of death from young children to adult even two mentally disable people.

 In 1996 the family of mwinzi had to bare with the hard reality after loss of their teenage girls who had gone to fetch water. The source say that one of the deceased slipped on the wet rock when trying to pull out the jerrican that had slipped into the water; fell into the dam then her sister slipped in also when pulling her out.

  The grieved residents headed by the area chief filled it up to some level with hardcore after the death of the teenage girls. The residents stopped using the water for domestic uses like cooking after incidents.

  Then followed the death of two students from Kyuso High school in two consecutive years when taking bath at the dam due to scarcity of the commodities at the school at that time. Their fellow student said that they slipped in and died as they did not know how to swim.   

  Last year and this year the resident had to bare with the loss of two mentally disabled people ( Musee and Kagwira).some of the  resident are using the dam in bathing hence exposing themselves to death.

 The residents of Kyuso hope the government is going to take action and fence it or have it filled up with more hardcore to evade more death.