Another eight bodies were retrieved from Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba on Sunday to take the death toll from this week’s ferry capsizing to 80, police said.
Police gave no details of the new victims but most of the passengers on the vessel were villagers and fish traders who lived around the lake, many from the Chalala fishing camp. Officials say the boat was authorised to carry 90 people but was packed with 114 adults, five crew members and an unspecified number of children. With the 80 bodies that police said they had recovered, this would mean the vessel was carrying 157 people.
“The Kariba RIDA boat accident death toll is now 80 following the recovery of eight more bodies on 16th August 2026,” the police said in a statement. The overloaded passenger ferry run by the government’s Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA) overturned in choppy waters on Tuesday in a rare accident on the vast lake on the border with Zambia.
Officials have not said how many children were among the dead.
