Kazungula Ferry

The Kazungula Ferry is a pontoon ferry across the 400-metre-wide Zambezi River between Botswana and Zambia. It is one of the largest ferries in south-central Africa, having a capacity of 70 tonnes. The service is provided by two motorised pontoons and operates between border posts at Kazungula, Zambia and Kasane, Botswana. [Camerapix: "Spectrum Guide to Zambia." Camerapix International Publishing, Nairobi, 1996.]

It links the Livingstone-Sesheke road (which connects to the Transcaprivi Highway at Katima Mulilo and forms part of the Walvis Bay Corridor) to the main north-south highway of Botswana through Francistown and Gaborone to South Africa, and also to the Kasane-Victoria Falls road through Zimbabwe. It serves the international road traffic of three countries directly (Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana) and of three more indirectly (Namibia, South Africa and DR Congo). [Terracarta/International Travel Maps, Vancouver Canada: "Zambia, 2nd edition", 2000.]

In 2003 the ferry was the site of a disaster when a severely-overloaded Zambian truck capsized one of the pontoons and 18 people drowned. The accident was blamed on the lack of weighbridges in Zambia to check the weight of trucks. [ [http://www.times.co.zm/news/viewnews.cgi?category=6&id=1170838563 Times of Zambia website] "Stiffer law against overloading ready" 7 February, 2007, accessed 1 March 2007.]

In August 2007 the governments of Zambia and Botswana announced a deal to construct a bridge at the site to replace the ferry. [ [http://palapye.wordpress.com/2007/08/04/zambia-botswana-reach-kazungula-bridge-deal/ "Zambia and Botswana reach Kazungula bridge deal."] "Palapye News blog." Retrived 12 November 2007.]

References