The confirmed death toll from an overloaded ferry that capsized on Lake Kariba rose to 84, including 18 children, as Zimbabwean authorities continued searching. Police said 12 more bodies were recovered from Lake Kariba, while the passenger count and number still missing remained uncertain. Zimbabwean police said Sunday that 12 additional bodies had been recovered, raising the confirmed death toll from 72 to 84. The ferry capsized in strong waves on Tuesday while traveling from Kariba toward rural and fishing communities around the lake.
The disaster management agency said 77 people were rescued, but authorities had not published a definitive passenger manifest or missing-person total. Estimates put the passenger count as high as 153 even though the aging ferry was authorized to carry 90 people. The published numbers do not yet close the accounting gap. Rescue totals, recovered bodies and estimates of who boarded must be reconciled person by person, and that work is especially difficult when infants were not consistently included in ticket counts and passengers came from dispersed shoreline settlements.
Police said 18 children were among the dead, including 16 aged 10 or younger and a victim who was one year old. Search crews remained on Lake Kariba because officials said identified passengers were still missing and further recoveries were possible. Road damage and scarce public transportation make ferry links essential for many isolated communities around the lake. Lake Kariba spans more than 200 kilometers and is shared by Zimbabwe and Zambia, creating a large and difficult search area.
A missing or incomplete manifest makes reconciliation of survivors, deaths and missing people slower after an overloaded-vessel disaster. The principal evidentiary limit at the edition cutoff was this: The exact number aboard, the number still missing and the mechanical or command decisions that preceded the capsize were not yet settled. The next public records to watch are a reconciled passenger and missing-person list and a formal investigation into capacity, weather decisions and vessel condition.