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Mystery surrounds the death of two unidentified persons whose vehicle slipped into the Titanic Dam in Murera area of Juja, Kiambu county, allegedly in the act of intimacy.

The two, man and woman, are reported to have been ‘having fun’ inside their Nissan X-Trail parked at edge of the dam on Tuesday night when the incident happened.

Yesterday, Kiambu County Fire Department pulled all stops to recover the multi-million-shilling SUV from the bed of the dam as hundreds of residents milled around with tales of the love couple renting the air.

The two suspected lovebirds are reported to have driven and parked at the edge of the dam at around 5pm and stayed in the car until around 8pm.

Sleuths were last evening piecing together information to establish the identities of the couple whose naked bodies were recovered from the dam.

Bodies recovered

“We are doing all we can to establish who the two are. Currently, we are only relying on the details we will find in the vehicle once it has been pulled out of the dam,” Phyllis Muthoni, the Juja sub-county police commander told the People Daily by telephone.

By the time of going to press, it was not clear the two were married. Eyewitnesses suspect the man is about 60 years old and the woman in her early 20s.

Martin Ngugi, a fire officer from Kiambu county revealed that rescuers woke up early to help recover the man’s body while the woman’s was successfully removed on Tuesday night.

“We just removed the body of the man and we don’t expect challenges finishing this job by the end of today,” said Ngugi earlier yesterday.

Witnesses who spoke to journalists recounted how they saw the vehicle the two had been sitting in for a while, slowly descend towards the banks of the dam before submerging into the dam.

They said the two had managed to get out of the car but drowned while attempting to swim to safety.

Another witness, Martin Ngugi, however suspects the two may have been intoxicated at the time of the incident.

“It is sad we have lost two more souls to this dam. We now pray that these will be the last victims to die here,” he said.

Tucked about 4km from Thika Road, the about 2km-long dam has, according to area MCA Ngatha Wambiri, claimed over 10 deaths in the recent past.

The dam is surrounded by tens of hotels, bars and other entertainment joints, where revellers throng, especially during weekends to have a taste of a different life.

But with continued loss of lives there, Wambiri said he would sponsor an Amendment Bill in the Kiambu County Assembly to compel hotel owners to fence off the dam to avert such incidents.

Deathtrap

While warning merrymakers against indulging in stimulative drinks while near the dam, Wambiri took issue with the Fisheries Ministry for failing to conserve the area.

Instead of being a deathtrap, Wambiri called on the government to add fish at the dam and recreate the facility to become an income generating enterprise for residents.

“We are very disturbed the government is building new dams to boost water supply in certain areas but ours here remains a deathtrap. It is time for the Fisheries department to transform this particular one to economically empower our people. The facility has claimed over 10 lives and this should stop,” he said.

The MCA further rooted for deployment of a surveillance team to monitor operations at the dam to enable speedy responses in case such accidents recur.

In a separate incident, an 11-year-old boy from Mutunguru village in Gatundu South drowned yesterday during a swimming expedition with his friends at Rwabura river.

The Grade Five boy is reported to have been in the company of his friend who managed to scamper to safety but failed to rescue the boy. “It is sad that those children had to travel for over 10km to go swim in the river. Parents need to take good care of their children and often get to know their whereabouts otherwise the boy would have been alive by now,” said Pastor Gatiba Gitau, a resident of Gitwe village, which is near the scene.