Death Toll Rises to 68 After Overloaded Ferry Capsizes on Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe

At least 18 children are among the dead after an overloaded ferry capsized on Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe, police said Saturday.

They announced in an update that rescue crews found 22 additional bodies in the days after the boat overturned in heavy waves on Tuesday, bringing the overall death toll to 68.

The aging vessel was traveling from Kariba town to rural fishing communities in the country's northwest, an area where roads are damaged and public transit options are scarce. Authorities have not disclosed how many passengers were on board or remain missing.

Passenger estimates ran as high as 153 people, despite the ferry carrying a maximum capacity of 90. Zimbabwe’s disaster management agency said 77 people were rescued from the water.

Officials initially said the number of child passengers was unclear because children under ticketing age were left off manifests. A police list later showed that 16 child victims were aged 10 or younger, including a one-year-old.

Lake Kariba is the world’s largest human-made lake by volume, created by damming the Zambezi River in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It stretches more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) long and spans up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) wide.

Zimbabwe and Zambia share the lake, with their national border cutting through its center.

Families mourn multiple family members

Some families lost several members in the disaster, including Collen Ndandalika whose wife and three children drowned.

“Two children have been recovered, but my wife and the other child are still missing. I still can’t believe this is a real world I am living in,” Ndandalika said.

He said that his wife sold goods bought in town to people in rural and fishing communities and had asked their children to help with the business during the school holidays.

“I have my brothers who are checking on the bodies to see if they can identify my wife and child. I am too traumatized to keep looking at dead bodies,” he said.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa acknowledged that the tragedy had “exposed serious deficiencies in our maritime capabilities which we have to address immediately so that our places of recreation do not become death traps to the innocent.”

He declared a state of disaster and ordered government agencies to mobilize resources to assist victims and accelerate recovery efforts.