The Zimbabwe Republic Police said on 18 August that the death toll from the 11 August Lake Kariba ferry sinking was now 94 [E1]. Search and recovery were still under way [E1]. Civil Protection and government statements put the number of people rescued at 77 [E2]. Those two figures describe recovered bodies and living survivors; they do not yet close a reconciled missing list [E1][E2].
The 18 August ledger is the load, not the first news of the wreck. A government statement after a cabinet meeting said the vessel had about 180 passengers and goods and had exceeded its carrying capacity [E2][E3]. Police statements from the week of the incident had put certified capacity at 90 passengers [E2][E3]. About 180 against 90 is the first clear official admission that the boat left at roughly double its stated limit [E2][E3].
Earlier partial counts sat lower. Ticket sales and Civil Protection figures circulated at about 114 adult passengers plus crew, with children under ticketing age uncounted [E3]. Local reconstructions put a higher onboard figure from recovered and rescued bodies before the cabinet statement [E3]. The 18 August government number supersedes those reconstructions as the official load admission [E2][E3].
The boat is the Mbuya Nehanda, operated by the Rural Infrastructure Development Agency, a government operator formerly under the District Development Fund [E3]. Local Government minister Daniel Garwe said the vessel held a valid fitness certificate from the Ministry of Transport and dismissed claims it was unfit [E2]. No inspection log, certificate date or survey extract was published with that assertion [E2].
Cabinet approved a full inquest into why the late captain sailed against Meteorological Services early warnings [E2]. Garwe attributed the wreck, in preliminary remarks, to human error and negligence by the captain, Sign Patsikadova, who died in the sinking [E2]. No surviving RIDA official, harbour controller or transport inspector had been charged by the freeze, and no licence suspension artifact had been issued [E1][E2].
The route ran from Kariba town to Chalala on the Zimbabwe side of the lake, with the capsize reported near Long Island [E2][E3]. A full passenger manifest was still unpublished, because tickets covered adults and children under ticketing age were never systematically counted [E3]. Until that manifest and the fitness certificate appear, the official story is a doubled load, a valid-certificate claim, and an inquest that has not yet named a living defendant [E1][E2][E3].