When word was sent to newsrooms that a fire had broken out in Mukuru Sinai slums along Lunga Lunga road, journalists in there characteristic quest to get the story as it breaks rushed to the scene, but nobody had prepared them for what they saw.
They didn’t know how big the tragedy was until they were on location. Armed with cameras, notebooks, pens, microphones, sound recorders, mobile phones and fully equipped outside broadcasting vans, the newsmen were just doing their job but it wasn’t that easy.
They walked in mud, through narrow and dark alleys, over corrugated iron sheets that were once houses and waded through a big crowd of curious on-lookers who had gathered around the area. Journalists, security officers, fire fighters and rescue workers went about their duties while jumping over an open sewer trench and carefully avoiding to step on charred remains of human beings, pigs and dogs strewn all over the place.
Some reporters began counting bodies but grew tired and lost count along the way. At some point, one could not differentiate between garbage, human remains and dead pigs as they were all burnt beyond recognition and heaped together in either a ditch or along the river bank. They therefore decided to rely on official figures from the Red Cross.
The air smelt of a mixture of sewage, petrol and burnt flesh. Rescue workers wore masks to avoid getting the stench but journalists and the police inhaled it all. Security officers, Red Cross personnel and fire fighters wore protective clothing but journalists were dressed like it was an ordinary day in the office.
Fire fighters and Red Cross personnel had their faces hidden behind helmets and masks, making it difficult to read their emotions. Police and members of the provincial administration managed to remain calm but a keen observer could tell that they were hurting inside.
For journalists and politicians, there was no holding back tears. Even the hardened of the messengers could not contain the emotions, as the putrid smell of death filled Sinai slums. One television reporter was even seen crying seconds before she went on air to give a live update but she wiped the tears and moved on.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, Makadara MP Gidion Mbuvi Sonko, Daily Nation’s Walter Menya and QFM’s Terry Bebora were among those who tried to put on brave faces but with little success.
"In as much as journalists are supposed to be impartial and objective, what I saw was traumatizing and I could not help shaking. It was the first time I was covering a tragedy of such magnitude but I managed to compose myself and got down to work," Terry Bebora said of her experience.
She contends that journalists, police and rescue workers also need counseling like that offered to victims because they are also human beings who may be emotionally affected.
Walter Menya described the scene as a gory that involuntarily opened a floodgate of tears.
"The fact that one could be standing over the charred remains of victims, out of lack of ability to differentiate it from the burnt wood just made the entire scene more frightening. These were my fellow country men and women reduced to stumps," he said.
According to Mr. Menya, listening to politicians’ empty rhetoric after the incident, when they were in a position to prevent the disaster, even augmented the stench of death.
Daily Nation’s
Alphonce Shiundu summed it up as a scene straight from hell. "The scene looked like one cut out from the nastiest of horror movies that Hollywood has ever produced," he noted.
