Two workers die when a Kigali drainage channel wall gives way, and police arrest the site engineer and supervisor
A wall of a drainage channel under construction in Kigali's Kinyinya sector collapsed on the morning of Nov. 2, killing two workers and injuring another. Police detained two people linked to the job, including the engineer in charge of the work, The New Times and Umuseke reported.
The channel was being built beside the road from the area known as Mavaze toward Kagugu, in Gasabo district, Umuseke reported, citing Radio 1. The two dead were Innocent Haguminshuti, 51, and Aloys Nsingizimana, 19. People at the scene told Radio 1 that Haguminshuti noticed signs the wall was about to fail and pushed a co-worker out of the way before it came down on him.
CIP Wellars Gahonzire, the Rwanda National Police spokesperson for Kigali, confirmed the collapse. He said two people tied to the channel work were arrested as an investigation got under way: the engineer directing construction and a staff member who oversaw building work and labor on the site. Police did not name them or say what offense is under investigation.
The reports do not name the contractor, the client for the channel, or what made the wall fail. The New Times did not give the injured worker's condition. Last week Kigali ordered an unfinished building in Nyabugogo demolished after its columns crumbled under the floors above.
Why it matters: Here a worker saw the wall start to go and had seconds to act. Crews next to new channel walls or open cuts should treat cracking, bulging or falling soil as a stop-work signal that clears the zone. In Kigali, police detained the site engineer within hours.
Sources
- Two arrested after drainage wall collapse kills two workersThe New Times, Nov 2
- Kigali: Urukuta rwa ruhurura rwishe abantu babiriUMUSEKE, Nov 2