Police say search for more bodies continues
Source: Lake Kariba disaster becomes Zimbabwe’s deadliest public transport tragedy – Zimbabwe News Now
HARARE – The Lake Kariba boat disaster is now the worst public transportation accident in Zimbabwe’s history, eclipsing the Nyanga bus disaster, after the death toll rose to 92 on Monday.
Police said eight more bodies had been recovered, as divers continue their grim search still with no certainty over how many people were onboard the Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA) passenger ferry that capsized on August 11.
Confirmation of 92 dead and 77 survivors places the number of people on the doomed vessel at 169 – well more than the boat’s reported capacity of 90. The death toll could still rise.
Not since August 3, 1991, when a bus carrying students and teachers from Regina Coeli High School crashed on the winding Nyanga-Ruwangwe road, resulting in 89 fatalities, has the country mourned so many people from a single public transport accident.
The rickety boat which went into service in 1985 was on a five-hour journey from Kariba urban to rural communities across the world’s biggest man-made lake when it sank during a high tide.
Survivors said the boat’s captain who died in the incident refused several requests to abort the trip due to bad weather.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has declared a national disaster and demanded an upgrade to what he called “maritime deficiencies.”
Demands for a commission of inquiry into the Lake Kariba incident have grown as the government also faces criticism for failing to declare days of mourning.
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