Maai Mahiu is a town in

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

Nakuru County Nakuru County is a county in Kenya. It is county number 32 out of the 47 Kenyan counties. Nakuru County is a host to Kenya's Fourth City – Nakuru City. On 1 December 2021, President Uhuru Kenyatta awarded a City Charter status to Nakuru, ran ...

. The name means "hot water" in native Kikuyu, but another derivative could be "me'imayu", meaning impassable in Maasai. Maai Mahiu has a train station as well as an inland container depot on the Nairobi–Malaba Standard Gauge Railway, which was inaugurated in October 2019. The Kenya government has established a 50-acre Special Economic Zone in Maai Mahiu, to facilitate investment in the region, in financial, hospitality, retail, and recreational facilities. In April 2024, a

flash flood A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice and snow. Flash f ...

nearby killed at least 50 people in the village of Kamuchiri. The flood resulted from a blockage in a

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe (fluid conveyance), pipe, reinforced concrete or other materia ...

beneath a railway embankment which led to a catastrophic failure and inundation; initially, it was reported as arising from a dam burst.

References

{{reflist Populated places in Nakuru County