Divers locate car that slid off Kenyan ferry

What you need to know:

  • Mariam Kighenda and her four-year-old daughter Amanda Mutheu drowned at the Likoni channel in Kenya’s coastal town Mombasa on September 29 after their saloon car slipped off the ferry.
  • The rescue team on Wednesday mapped four locations, where they suspected the vehicle and bodies could be lying.

A multi-agency team searching for a mother and her daughter who drowned after their car slid off a ferry into the Indian Ocean last week said Wednesday that they have located the vehicle.

Mariam Kighenda and her four-year-old daughter Amanda Mutheu drowned at the Likoni channel in Kenya’s coastal town Mombasa on September 29 after their saloon car slipped off the ferry.

The vehicle was spotted at 58 metres deep by the foreign divers, who flew into the country after efforts by the Kenya Navy to locate the vehicle and the bodies of the victims hit a snag.

Government spokesman Cyrus Oguna told journalists Wednesday that the car was seen lying on its side according to images captured by 3D technology used in the recovery mission.

“What is remaining is retrieval of the vehicle,” said Mr Oguna.

The rescue team on Wednesday mapped four locations, where they suspected the vehicle and bodies could be lying.

The sites had been identified by an echo sounder, an instrument used to determine the depth of water and detect objects in the sea.

“The divers had checked on two [of the locations] which gave negative results. On Thursday, they were working to see how they could get on the other two, which were a bit deeper,” Nation was told.

By the time of going to press, the vehicle had not been retrieved.