A baby has died and 23 people are missing after a hippopotamus hit a boat travelling on the Shire River in Malawi, authorities have said.
Police in the African country’s southern district of Nsanje said the canoe was carrying 37 people across the waterway when the incident took place on Monday morning.
The Nsanje police spokesperson Agnes Zalakoma said that locals managed to pull 13 people from the water, while another 23 were still missing on Tuesday.
Rescuers also retrieved the body of a one-year-old who had drowned, she said.
“The search mission to locate the missing individuals is currently under way,” Zalakoma said.
The canoe started to list and eventually capsized after the hippo collided with it, she said.
The Shire is Malawi’s largest river. Boat accidents are common in the country, where the lack of regular water transport forces many to cross lakes and rivers in sometimes rickety boats, in the absence of proper regulations.
Last month at least five people died after an overcrowded boat sank in Malawi’s central district of Mchinji.
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