At least 44 people have died after an overloaded ferry capsized on Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba on Tuesday, according to police.
Police said on the social media platform X that the bodies had been recovered from the lake, but did not provide an update on how many were injured or still missing.
The ferry is believed to have capsized while carrying at least 114 adults and five crew members, according to Zimbabwe’s disaster management agency. The agency said on Tuesday that 77 people had been rescued.
It was not clear how many people were aboard the ferry as the figures only included those who had bought tickets, and children below the ticketing age could have been on board.
State broadcaster ZBC reported that children were among the dead, though authorities didn't immediately give those details.
According to authorities, the ferry had a carrying capacity of 90 people.
ZBC previously published a video of speedboats making their way to what appeared to be an overturned boat on the lake as a helicopter hovered overhead.
An underwater team for search and rescue operations was deployed on the huge lake.
Mutsa Murombedzi, a local member of Parliament, posted a video of what she said were people on shore waving off what appeared to be the ferry at the start of its journey.
She said rural communities use the boat to travel along the lake to the town of Kariba, a journey that usually takes about five hours.
Some people standing on the shore were also concerned about whether the ferry would survive strong waves on the lake, according to the video.
Earlier, Zimbabwe police had said a rescue operation was underway but did not provide any further details.
Kariba is the largest man-made lake in the world by volume. It was created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by building a dam wall in order to block the Zambezi River.
As such, a valley slowly filled with water to form a huge lake that is now more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) long and up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) wide in places.
Zimbabwe and Zambia share the lake, with the official border between them in the middle of it.
