A boat carrying scores of passengers capsized on Lake Kivu in eastern Congo on Thursday, killing at least 50 people, witnesses told The Associated Press.
It was not immediately clear exactly how many people were on board or how many perished but witnesses said they saw rescue services recover at least 50 bodies from the water. They said 10 people survived and were taken to the local hospital.
The boat, overloaded with passengers, sank while trying to dock just meters (yards) away from the port of Kituku, the witnesses said. It was going from Minova in South Kivu province to Goma, in North Kivu province.
Local authorities said that the rescue efforts continued and the death toll remained unknown for the moment. In February, the majority of the 50 passengers aboard a wooden boat were presumed dead after the vessel capsized on Lake Kivu.
“This boat was carrying about a hundred people when it had the capacity for about thirty passengers,” the governor of the province of South Kivu Jean-Jacques Purusi told a local radio station following the accident.
It was the latest deadly boat accident in the central African country, where overcrowding on vessels is often to blame. Maritime regulations also are often not followed.
