At least 44 people are confirmed dead after an overcrowded ferry capsized on Lake Kariba, with police in Zimbabwe updating the death toll twice within half an hour on Wednesday afternoon. The vessel overturned Tuesday after being struck by large waves, and search-and-rescue efforts were continuing as specialized teams worked to locate dozens still unaccounted for.
The boat’s authorized capacity was 90 passengers, but it was carrying 114 adult passengers, five crew members and an unknown number of children, according to Zimbabwe’s civil protection unit, which cited ticket sales. A crew member told the national broadcaster ZBC that 153 people were aboard when the ferry went over. A passenger said the vessel began taking on water roughly 30 minutes after leaving the lakeshore town of Kariba, bound for islands and fishing camps.
A specialized underwater team was flown to the site, the civil protection unit said, as the search went on. The death toll initially stood at 15, with 27 listed as missing; police later revised the figure to 38 and then 44, saying the bodies had been recovered from the lake. Video circulated by ZBC appeared to show people seated on the upturned hull while four speedboats moved in and a helicopter circled overhead.
The incident is the latest in a string of boating accidents on Lake Kariba, the world’s largest human-made lake by volume, which stretches about 150 miles along Zimbabwe’s northern border with Zambia. Created in the 1950s when the Zambezi River was dammed under British colonial rule, the reservoir displaced some 57,000 people and now supplies at least a third of both Zimbabwe’s and Zambia’s electricity.
Overturned boats on the lake are not unusual. In 2014, 26 people—24 of them children—drowned on the Zambian side when a vessel carrying them to independence day celebrations capsized. On the Zimbabwean side, five people died in a 2021 incident, and three were feared dead after a capsizing in October 2023. The previous month, a police boat overturned without any fatalities.