Murram excavators have left the Kisumu-Butere railway line hanging in Manyulia area in Butere constituency and caused the stalling of rehabilitation works.
The National Environmental Management Authority is hunting contractors responsible for the excavation to charge them in court.
The Kenya Defence Forces have been rehabilitating the railway line that was constructed in 1931 by the colonial government.
“We are looking for those who have been scooping murram from the location and they will face the law. They have left huge craters that run up to the shoulders of the railway line,” Kakamega county Nema coordinator Simon Tanui said.
“We were not aware that such activities were going on. We have been told that virtually all roads that have been constructed since devolution were done by murram from the site.”
Tanui said that the gaping quarries also posed a serious risk to humans, livestock and the environment.
The railway line was built to transport farm produce from the Western and Nyanza regions and serve Butere which was an administrative centre for missionaries. The railway line went into disuse in the early 1990s.
Tanui said that the miners had encroached on railway line reserve during their excavation activities over years.
He said that a man who sold the piece of land to the contractor will also be arrested for encroaching on the railway reserve.
Tanui said that the KDF personnel reported the matter to the State House delivery unit after realising the railway could not be rebuilt through the quarries in their current state.
The line is an extension of the meter-gauge railway that has been revamped from Nakuru to the Kisumu city port.
From Kisumu, the railway line goes through Kisian, Lela, Maseno, Luanda, Yala and Namasoli trading centres.
The railway line will run from Nakuru to Eldoret, both in the Rift Valley which will also be supplemented by a line running from Bungoma to Malaba in Busia county.
The local leadership led by Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya has been pushing for the revival of the railway line to ease the movement of farm produce from the region to other parts of the country.
Residents say that the collapse of rail transport slowed down the growth of Butere town and centres along the line.
(edited by o. owino)