Grief has engulfed a village in Mwea East, Kirinyaga County, after four-year-old twins were burnt to death as fire gutted their house.

The two children, a boy and a girl, had been left home with their grandmother on Wednesday, January 8 afternoon when the unfortunate incident occurred.

Confirming the incident, Murinduko Location Chief Patrick Njeru says the mother of the children had gone to look for a school where the twins were supposed to join.

“The grandmother then left the kids in the house and went to the farm at around 3 pm in the afternoon only to hear a loud bang followed by smoke billowing from the house,” the local administrator says.

Efforts by neihghbours to put out the fire proved futile. When firefighters from Kirinyaga and Embu arrived at the scene, the house had already being reduced to ashes, and the children dead.

The source of the fire is yet to be known, with detectives commencing investigations in earnest.