Students of Nyamira Boys secondary school were last night forced to spend the night in the cold after one of their dormitories caught fire.
The around 3pm fire brought down a 72-capacity dormitory and nothing would be salvaged.
A teacher who sought anonymity accused the county government of not providing fire extinguishing equipment in the county and its slow responses to similar cases. He noted that similar incidents have occurred in the recent past and the government seems not to have learnt any lesson.
There were no injuries in the incident as the students were attending their afternoon lessons.
According to a school captain, they were rattled by a cloud of smoke as they attended afternoon lessons and dashed out towards the scene only to find one of their dormitories on fire. The furnace was too scarring and only watched it consume their belongings.
“We saw a huge cloud come from the residential premises and we could not think at first it could be our dormitory being brought down by fire, we came and only watched it consume the whole house, we could not help because we had no fire extinguishing equipment,” he said.
The cause of the fire has not been established though there is a likelihood that it was caused by electricity fault. Power in Nyamira was on and off for the better part of Tuesday.
The police have launched investigations to determine whether there was a foul play to the incident.
A spot check in the dormitories showed that the houses lacked emergency exit as directed by the Ministry of Education for safety of the students in case of fire incidences.