At least 24 people have died after a bus carrying church mourners collided with a truck on the Mombasa–Nairobi highway near Kanga, close to Mtito Andei in Makueni County. The collision happened on Sunday morning as the passengers travelled back towards Mombasa after attending the funeral of their pastor in western Kenya. A further 24 people were reported injured and taken for treatment. Earlier accounts had put the number killed at 22, underscoring that casualty figures can change as hospitals and authorities complete their checks.
The bus was carrying members of Power of the Word Church International. Survivors described a breakfast stop in Mtito Andei shortly before the crash. The other vehicle was reported to be carrying cement. The collision took place at about 7.45am on a major route between Nairobi and the coast, a road used by passenger traffic as well as heavy goods vehicles.
The circumstances have not been conclusively established. Authorities are investigating what happened, and the available accounts differ on the sequence immediately before the impact. A police account said the bus driver had been trying to overtake several vehicles before the collision with an oncoming truck. The National Transport and Safety Authority said dangerous or improper overtaking was a possible factor on the preliminary information available.
However, a surviving passenger gave a different description, saying that the truck struck the bus from behind and that the bus then rolled. These accounts should not be treated as a final finding about the cause or as a basis for assigning responsibility. The investigation will need to establish the position and movement of both vehicles, the condition of the road and any other relevant factors before conclusions can be drawn.
The fatal collision came just over three weeks after another crash on the same Nairobi–Mombasa highway killed 17 people near Salama. That earlier incident involved several vehicles and was a separate event, but it has intensified attention on safety on this important transport corridor. The National Transport and Safety Authority has identified the area as one with a history of crashes and, after Sunday’s collision, called for road crashes to be recognised as a national disaster.
Kenya’s transport authorities have set out a range of responses following the latest crash. President William Ruto offered condolences to bereaved families and ordered inspections of vehicles used for public transport. Transport Minister Davis Chirchir said enforcement against speeding and unsafe overtaking would be strengthened, while dangerous stretches of road would be improved and training and checks for commercial drivers reinforced. The measures were announced as a response to the crash; the reports did not set out a timetable for their delivery.
The scale of the wider problem is substantial. The National Transport and Safety Authority has put road-crash deaths in 2025 at 5,009 and recorded 2,150 deaths in the first half of 2026. The authority has also estimated that around 20,000 crashes occur nationally each year. Those figures give context to the renewed calls for enforcement and safer road conditions, but they do not determine what caused the Kanga collision.
For now, the immediate focus remains on those injured, the families of those who died and the work needed to establish the facts. The differing accounts of the impact and the earlier change in the reported death toll are reminders that information in the first hours after a major collision can be incomplete. Any finding on the conduct of the drivers or the cause of the crash should await the outcome of the official investigation.
