Two major crashes in October have killed more than 40 people, prompting NTSA to call for road accidents to be declared a national disaster amid renewed scrutiny of highway safety.

More than 40 people have been killed in two major road accidents along the Nairobi–Mombasa Highway this month, intensifying concerns over safety on one of Kenya’s busiest transport corridors as the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) calls for road crashes to be declared a national disaster.

The latest tragedy occurred on Sunday, October 25, when 23 people died after a bus belonging to Power of the Word Church International collided head-on with a lorry-trailer at Kanga, near Mtito Andei in Makueni County.

The crash came barely three weeks after 17 people, most of them Catholic pilgrims, were killed in a multiple-vehicle collision at Mlima Kiu in Salama on October 3.