Body of Voi sand harvester retrieved from sandpit after one week

Voi,

 Wednesday, November 1, 2023 

KNA by Wagema Mwangi

Ore village on the outskirts of Voi town in Taita-Taveta County is reeling in shock after the decomposing body of a sand-harvester who went missing a week ago was discovered trapped inside a deep sandpit.

According to neighbours, the 40-year-old man went missing on Thursday last week. The family conducted a frantic search for him but were unsuccessful in locating his whereabouts. It was not until Wednesday morning this week that the foul smell and a collapsed pit at an isolated area next to the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) pillars pointed to a grim possibility of a tragic end to the sand miner.

It is suspected that the man was sand-harvesting alone when the sand pit collapsed and buried him alive.

The body-retrieval operation took over four hours as well-wishers took turns to dig out their colleague’s remains and remove rubble from the deep hole.

Voi Sub-County Police Commander Bernastein Shari said investigations had been opened into the incident to establish the cause of death. He added that the rains in the regions had significantly increased the risks of cave-ins for sand-harvesters and called for extra vigilance.

“We have retrieved the body and investigations have been launched to establish what transpired,” he said.

The body was taken to Moi County Referral Hospital mortuary for preservation.

Mr. George Ouma, a veteran sand harvester, said sand-harvesting was an activity that was fraught with grave risks including the peril of being buried alive by collapsed pits. He disclosed that since 2009, at least seven miners have died after their sandpits collapsed.

He added that to stop the deaths at sand-harvesting sites, there was need to deploy modern equipment like mechanical shovels to break the hard-pan on the surface that usually poses a threat to them.

“It’s a risky activity because the risk of collapse of pits is very high. With a mechanical shovel, we can avoid these tragedies,” he said.

Area Member of County Assembly (MCA) Azar Din termed the death as a tragedy. He said the county was in the process of developing guidelines that would regulate the sector while enforcing safety standards in the sand-harvesting areas.

He further said the sector supports thousands of families and was responsible for employing many young people who were not working in the formal sector.

“The process to initiate guidelines on how to enforce safety standards is necessary to ensure no more lives are lost,” he said.

Courtesy; KNA