The death toll from an overloaded ferry disaster on Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba has climbed to at least 44, officials said Wednesday.
The vessel, operated by Zimbabwe’s Rural Infrastructure Development Agency, capsized on Tuesday afternoon near Long Island with far more people aboard than its designed capacity of 90. Anyway Chambati, 28, one of only two crew members who survived, told state broadcaster ZBC News that he had counted 153 people on board including crew and infants before the disaster struck.
“Some of us survived by standing on top of the capsized hull,” Chambati said. “Before it went down, passengers were screaming at us that the boat was flooding, water was pouring into the engine room and goods were spilling out.”
Multiple witnesses told ZBC that passengers urged the captain to turn back as waves grew perilous.
“We argued with him right at the harbor,” one woman said. “We told him the waves were too dangerous.”
The same survivor continued, “A bag fell overboard before we had even left, and we pointed it out, but he refused to listen.”
Another passenger told the broadcaster that the pleas intensified as conditions worsened. “About 30 minutes in, we begged again to abort and return, more goods were falling, the wave was getting worse and water was gushing into one side of the boat, but (the captain) just said, ‘My boat has never sunk anyone.’ He even refused to call for help.”
The woman described some people floating in the water and clutching sacks of goods while help did not arrive for nearly an hour.
The captain was among the dead, the state-run Herald newspaper reported.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared the incident a state of disaster to enable the government to mobilize “extraordinary measures and resources” to assist victims.
Zimbabwe’s Civil Protection Unit initially reported 15 dead and 27 missing on Tuesday, with 77 people rescued to a small island. The agency said it could confirm 114 adult passengers through registered ticket sales plus five crew members, but noted children below ticketing age could have been aboard uncounted.
Government spokesman Nick Mangwana confirmed the accident shortly after it happened. “A Rural Infrastructure Development Agency boat capsized on Lake Kariba, with rescue teams now scrambling to assist people in the water,” he said.
Mangwana added, “Number of casualties, passenger numbers, or the cause will be updated as soon as the information is available. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and the brave rescuers working in difficult conditions. We pray for all those caught in this tragedy.”
In the viral moment that preceded the tragedy, Mutsa Murombedzi, a local member of Parliament, posted a video of what she said were people on shore waving off the ageing ferry at the start of its journey. She said rural communities use the boat to travel along the lake to the town of Kariba, a journey that usually takes about five hours. Some people standing on the shore were also concerned about whether the ferry would survive strong waves on the lake, according to the video. The vessel was identified as the RIDA Mbuyanehanda Ferry.
Police on X said bodies had been retrieved from the lake, and an underwater search and rescue team was deployed on the huge lake, which forms part of the border between Zimbabwe and neighboring Zambia. Kariba is the largest man-made lake in the world by volume, created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by building a dam wall to block the Zambezi River, and now stretches more than 200 kilometers long and up to 40 kilometers wide.
Rescue and recovery operations are continuing, with families awaiting confirmation about the fate of passengers who remain unaccounted for.