Kenya is slowly splitting at the Rift Valley, geologists have said after massive Earth movements on Monday morning left deep fissures in Narok County. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
6.April 2018
The Maai Mahiu-Narok road could be rerouted away from the floor of the Rift Valley if the fault line on it is determined to be a major problem in the future, the Transport minister has said.
James Macharia told the Senate’s Roads Committee that a technical team is considering the options available if the fault line near Suswa continues to grow.
“If that fault line is not addressed by human intervention, it may be a case of rerouting that road away from the bottom of the valley,” Mr Macharia told the senators at a meeting in Nairobi on Thursday.
He said the option would be to have a road constructed on a higher gradient, far from the cracking floor. This would mean that the current road, which is also prone to flooding, is abandoned.
The Cabinet Secretary said the fault line would not affect the Standard Gauge Railway, which is currently in the second phase of construction on the Nairobi-Naivasha route.
Kenya National Highways Authority director-general Peter Mundinia said they found that the Geology and Mines Department had done a lot of work on research on the fault line and would assist them make a decision.
Geologists have said that the fault line is as a result of the Somali tectonic plate pulling away from the African one as a result of activity in the earth’s crust.
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