{"id":242248,"date":"2026-08-26T08:28:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T06:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/zimbabwe\/zimbabwe-months-before-kariba-tragedy-rida-captain-had-already-battled-dangerous-waters\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T08:28:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T06:28:52","slug":"zimbabwe-months-before-kariba-tragedy-rida-captain-had-already-battled-dangerous-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/zimbabwe\/zimbabwe-months-before-kariba-tragedy-rida-captain-had-already-battled-dangerous-waters\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe: Months Before Kariba Tragedy, RIDA Captain Had Already Battled Dangerous Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"32\">When Captain Sign Patsikadova turned the RIDA vessel <em>Mbuya Nehanda<\/em> around in January, he was facing a decision that could have put nearly 90 passengers at risk if he got it wrong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"33\">The boat was on its way to Chalala when it ran into powerful waves between Long Island and Musamba Island. Heavy rain had reduced visibility, and the vessel was struggling against the conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"7\">Then part of the boat broke away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n  <span style=\"font-size: 110%;\"><br \/>\nFollow us on <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029VaIdDi8Bqbr263erhw1K\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">WhatsApp<\/a> | <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/allafrica\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a> for the latest headlines<br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"32\">The vessel&#8217;s rump&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202608260031.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Zimbabwe\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/zimbabwe\/\">Zimbabwe<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Captain Sign Patsikadova turned the RIDA vessel Mbuya Nehanda around in January, he was facing a decision that could have put nearly 90 passengers at risk if he got it wrong. The boat was on its way to Chalala when it ran into powerful waves between Long Island and Musamba Island. Heavy rain had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":188473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[248],"tags":[258,256,55278,10844,5134,591,7061,257,27550,254,13662,7109,4686,421],"class_list":["post-242248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zimbabwe","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-battled","tag-captain","tag-dangerous","tag-kariba","tag-months","tag-news","tag-rida","tag-south-africa-today","tag-tragedy","tag-waters","tag-zimbabwe","tag-zimbabwe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}