Boat Capsizes On School Outing, 22 Killed

Unable to muster the $1.70 fare, 30 schoolchildren watched dejectedly as their classmates boarded a catamaran ferry for an end-of-term celebratory outing.

The disappointment, however, quickly gave way to panic and shock as the boat capsized just 50 yards from shore in Lake Chivero, drowning 22 of their fellow students.

The details of Friday’s accident - officials called it one of the worst boating disasters in the country’s history - were sketchy, and survivors gave conflicting accounts of why the craft went down.

A survivor, 13-year-old Portia Matekenya, was quoted in The Herald newspaper saying that one of the catamaran’s two engines fell off and sank as the 40-foot boat tried to make headway against a squall.

According to the newspaper, the pilot ordered 10 schoolboys to climb onto the rails on one side to correct the boat’s listing, and that caused the craft to take on water.

But the pilot, Bernard Zvegg, blamed the children, saying they were charging around the deck. “They all ran to one side of the boat and that’s when the water started coming in,” Zvegg told Britain’s Sky TV.

Eighteen students, a teacher and the pilot managed to reach the shore. Police divers later recovered the 22 bodies and the hull of the boat, which sank in nine feet of water in the manmade lake.