HARARE – Divers retrieved 25 bodies from Lake Kariba on Saturday, to take the death toll from last week’s ferry capsizing to 72, police said, as the search continued for victims.

The overloaded passenger ferry run by the government’s Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA) overturned in choppy waters last Monday in a rare accident on the vast lake on the border with Zambia. It is the country’s deadliest such disaster.

“The Kariba RIDA boat accident death toll is now 72 after the recovery of three more bodies late on August 15, 2026,” police said in a statement late Saturday.

“Meanwhile the identification of the bodies recovered today is in progress,” the statement added.

Earlier Saturday, police announced a jump in the toll to 68 after the recovery of 22 more bodies. They 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.

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.

The civil protection unit said on Wednesday that 77 people had been rescued.

Hundreds of people gathered at the district hospital in Kariba on Saturday to identify the bodies of their relatives and loved ones.

“We are confident that we will manage to retrieve all the bodies,” Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Muchechesi, commander of the boat regiment involved in the search operation, said.

He added that it was taking a while for the bodies to rise to the surface because of the cold winter weather.

An emotional public memorial service was held in Kariba on Thursday before the burials started.

Survivors said they had pleaded with the ferry driver to turn back as the vessel had begun taking on water soon after departing.

A survivor told reporters on Thursday how he had watched helplessly as people tried to save themselves as the boat went down, with his best friend and seven of his relatives among the dead.

“Thank God that a wave pushed the sinking vessel and we managed to climb on top,” Chance Siyamavhu said at the memorial service.

“When the boat capsized, most of the people scrambled to get the life jackets but most of them did not even know how to use them,” the 45-year-old said. “Most people could not make it.”

Lake Kariba straddles the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia and is the world’s largest man-made lake by volume. – AFP