•The number of boarders in the school at the time was 330 pupils with 166 of them being girls.
•The rest of the school’s population comprises day scholars. The school has 824 pupils.
Image: KNA
The government has promised to settle medical and funeral expenses for 21 pupils who perished in the Endarasha Academy fire tragedy last Thursday.
Nyeri County Commissioner and acting Central Region Commissioner Pius Murugu said this will form part of the efforts to assist the parents who lost their sons in the devastating incident.
Murugu said a multi-agency security team probing the real cause of the fire will soon fold camp to allow the institution to reopen.
He spoke at the Kabiruini ASK showground on Wednesday after officiating the opening of this year’s Agricultural trade fair.
“The government has taken the initiative to foot all medical bills and provide burial expenses. We plan to have a memorial service before we dispatch the bodies,” he said.
“We will offer psychological and psychosocial support to the parents and everybody affected by the tragedy.”
On Tuesday, Murugu confirmed out of the 164 pupils who were sleeping in the dormitory on that fateful Thursday night, only 19 perished. Two others died while receiving specialised treatment.
The administrator said all the 164 boys in the ill-fated dormitory had been accounted for.
The number of boarders in the school at the time was 330 pupils with 166 of them being girls.
The rest of the school’s population comprises day scholars. The school has 824 pupils.
The county administrator said all parents who lost their children in the fire presented themselves at the Naromoru Level Four hospital mortuary for the process of body identification.
He said the decision to move the bodies to the county morgue would help expedite the process of carrying out DNA analysis and avert overwhelming staff at the Nyeri County Teaching and Referral Hospital.
“On Tuesday we were able to summon all the bereaved parents to come to the hospital where DNA samples were taken to match them with the bodies so that they can be identified by name.
"This process will take some time since some of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition,” he said.
Investigators working at the school are yet to crack the riddle of what caused the Thursday night fire after Kenya Power ruled out a fault on Tuesday.
Nyeri Kenya Power business manager Duncan Machuka said comprehensive investigations of the school power connections established the cause of the fire lay elsewhere.
“Based on the findings of the preliminary analysis of our protection system, from the metre 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,” Machuka said.
“The company will continue to work collaboratively with other investigating agencies to establish the cause of the fire,” he added.
The company’s investigations revealed the line supplying power to the school is a low-voltage line from the Mweiga substation and supply was stable at the time of the incident.
It was verified that the utility power installations including the meter, supply cable, earth wires, low voltage and high tension fuses and transformer were intact.
The probe is said to have established that the fire did not affect the two prepaid metres within the larger school’s complex.
In conclusion, attention now shifts to the power regulator and Petroleum Regulatory Authority responsible for any power beyond the metre.
Machuka said his team will continue working hand in hand with other investigators at the site to find out what caused the blaze.
“I am aware our Epra is on the ground doing investigations and we are working with them to ascertain that.
"We haven’t conclusively gone beyond that jurisdiction area but we have ascertained that there was no link between the fire and our system,” Kenya Power manager said.