Families mourn victims of Zimbabwe ferry disaster as death toll rises to 46

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Mourners gathered in a Zimbabwe fishing town Thursday to bid farewell to dozens of people who were killed when an overloaded ferry capsized on Lake Kariba this week, as police said the death toll rose to 46.

Dozens of mourners, including cabinet ministers, gathered at Kariba’s Nyamhunga Stadium, where coffins were laid out in the middle of the field under tents.

The ferry capsized on Zimbabwe ’s Lake Kariba on Tuesday. Police and the government agency responsible for the ferry have yet to give an official count of how many people were aboard or how many remain missing. Estimates have put the number of passengers as high as 153, while authorities say the aging ferry has a capacity of 90. The country's disaster management agency on Wednesday said that 77 people had been rescued.

State broadcaster ZBC News reported that some families lost several members in the disaster. The ferry was traveling from Kariba town to rural communities and fishing camps, where residents rely heavily on fishing and on the vessel for transport because roads are damaged and public transport is scarce or virtually nonexistent.

Among those grieving was Collen Ndandalika, whom the broadcaster said lost his wife and three children.

“My wife and children all 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,” he said.

His wife sold goods bought in town to people in rural and fishing communities. She had asked their children to help with the business during the school holidays, he said.

“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.

The disaster has also triggered criticism of the continued use of the aging ferry and what some say was a delayed rescue response to the sinking. Some survivors on Wednesday said they pleaded in vain with the captain of the overloaded ferry to turn back from strong waves shortly before it capsized.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, in a condolence message, 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.”

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

Kariba is the largest human-made lake in the world by volume and was created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by building a dam on the Zambezi River. The huge lake is now more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) long and up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) wide in places.