The death toll at the Hillside Endarasha Academy fire tragedy has risen to 18 as 70 others remain unaccounted for.

This even as detectives from DCI Headquarters touched the ground ready to unravel the cause of the deadly fire that also left 27 others admitted to hospitals with burns.

Reports indicate that more bodies could still be trapped inside the dormitory that caught fire, housing 156 boys.

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, while announcing reprieve for 86 families whose children's whereabouts are known, stated that a cloud of uncertainty still hangs over the whereabouts of 70 pupils out of the 312 who were in the boarding school.

However, contrary to reports that the fire consumed the boys' dormitory at around 11pm, Citizen TV learned that parents started receiving distress calls from their children at about 10:40pm on Thursday, informing them that their dormitory was on fire - details that show that the fire could have started much earlier.

Following the inferno, further reports indicate that most children fought to save their lives from the blaze.

One of the children said that they saw smoke and fire emanating from the main door of the dormitory.

While some managed to escape through the window, others remained trapped and were consumed by the raging fire, which was only put out at 3am.

The incident prompted an early security meeting convened at the school by Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, even as other agencies, led by the Red Cross, conducted contact tracing efforts among parents and children who had remained behind at the institution.

As the government embarks on searching for the missing children, Kindiki is calling on anyone who might be housing a pupil who lost direction from the school to return them for accountability and reunite them with their parents.