One student died while 141 others injured Sunday morning after an electricity transformer scare caused a stampede at the University of Nairobi's Kikuyu Campus.

University of Nairobi Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Mbithi said the students jumped from their hostels to the ground floor when they mistook the explosion from the transformer for a terrorist attack at 4am.

"141 students are being attended to in hospitals," Mbithi said.

"The explosion from the transformer went off and there was a succession of the same for about 20 seconds that made many of the students think it was Al-Shabaab who had attacked," said a student with a scratch in the face.

Some of the students jumped from as high as the sixth floor of the buildings during the melee, police told Xinhua, adding that many were seriously injured.

The incident comes two weeks after 148 students at the Garissa University College were killed during a siege by militants from the Al-Shabaab terror group.

Officials said the students avoided using the main entrance to get out but opted to jump out through the windows because they believed the "attackers" were there.