Passengers stranded for hours after Nairobi-bound bus breaks down mid journey – Nairobi News

It started out like any other journey. The driver set off right on time with the passengers anxious to reach their destination. Only that fate had something else in store for them.

The Dreamline bus left its Mombasa station at 10pm on Sunday headed to Nairobi with more than a 30 passengers on board.

From Mombasa to its first stop in Mtito Andei everything was fine as the passengers took a 10 minutes break.

Mtito Andei is usually the stopping point for long distance buses plying the Mombasa-Nairobi route.

Here, passengers are allowed to alight and grab refreshments from the roadside eateries and also to answer calls of nature.

BREAKDOWN

But just 20 minutes after the bus set off again, it started developing mechanical problems.

“We left Mtito Andei hoping for a smooth journey to Nairobi, but the bus soon broke down,” said one passenger who requested anonymity.

The driver tried working on the bus but he was unable to fix the problem.

Eventually he requested for a mechanic from the head office in Mombasa who came with another Nairobi-bound bus from the company.

“It was already 3am and everyone was exhausted from all the waiting. The mechanic came with the other bus but none of us could go with it for it was already full,” the passenger who spoke to Nairobi News said.

ALTERNATIVE MEANS

The mechanic worked on the bus till 7am on Monday morning but mechanical problem had not yet been fixed.

“Most passengers slept inside the bus during the few hours. We were all anxious to reach our destinations as some were returning back to their respective places of work,” said the passenger.

At this point, the driver advised the passengers to seek alternative means to complete their journey.

Some of the passengers, after seeing that they were not getting much help, started stopping vehicles on the highway and hitching rides.

“I had to spend an extra Sh500, having already paid Sh1,300 as bus fare at the start of the journey. This was a very bad experience for me. They left us desperate in the middle of the journey, which is not right,” our source said.

Dreamline Express Limited was yet to respond to the claims by the time this story was published.