A KARIBA man will not forget the day he nearly perished in Lake Kariba after a vessel that he was travelling in with his son and two others capsized.
They were on their way to Kariba local fishing camps to buy fish.
Along the way, the vessel was overpowered by heavy currents and it capsized, leaving Success Ruzvidzo, his son Irvin, and two others stranded.
After it capsized, two other people onboard were rescued by vessels that were pulling their way to the shore for safety. Ruzvidzo and his son Irvin (17) were unlucky as they were washed away by the gushing waters and spent the night holding on to a cooler box for safety.
“The accident occurred on December 13 about 20km from Muchenga fishing camp,” Ruzvidzo said.
“We wanted to go offshore for safety when a huge whirlwind approached us and hit our boat twice. The vessel lost control and capsized in the process.”
“After that, we were all washed away and got stuck in water.
“My son wanted to hold on to a container of water but I advised him not to. I swam to where he was and held his hand and we had now to hold onto a cooler box.”
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He said they were washed further away by the currents.
“The heavy storm kept hitting us but we were brave enough and kept fighting for survival. Around 3pm, a boat came for rescue but before it reached the point where we were, it ran out of fuel. The storm from that time continued hitting us but we couldn't lose hope.
“We spent the night in the water after failing to get help.
“We only got help around 12 noon the following day but water kept hitting us taking us to areas such as Spurwing Islands and back in deep points of the lake.”
Inland and water department lake captain Adan Nyekete said they received the report around 1900hours.
“I immediately mobilised the army boat squadron for assistance,” Nyekete said.
“We went for a search in the evening from around 8pm up to around 1am on Thursday but we couldn’t find the two.
“We then went back to the harbour and resumed the search the following morning.”
Nyekete said various search teams joined them.
“This time the relatives had also mobilised their own boat so we searched for the two up to around 1100hrs and managed to locate them in the Changa area towards Fothergil safari camp.
“We took them to the hospital where they were admitted and later discharged.”
