One child has died, and 23 other people are missing after a hippopotamus collided with a boat carrying villagers, causing it to capsize.
The accident took place in the remote Nsanje District in southern Malawi, near the Mozambique border, on Monday, May 15. The boat was reportedly transporting 37 people who were heading to their fields to tend to their crops.
The police, with the aid of World Food Program personnel who happened to be in the area, rescued 13 people from the water, according to Dominic Mwandira, Nsanje District Police Commissioner.
Locals said that hippos have caused accidents before, and many of them have called for the relocation of some of the animals.
Agnes Zalakoma, the spokesperson for the Nsanje police, said that the search team found the dead body of a one-year-old who drowned in the accident and that the rescue team was actively working to find the other passengers who are missing and feared dead. Zalakoma explained that the boat began to tilt and eventually capsized after being hit by the hippo.
The toddler was the only child in the boat.
The local community had demanded that a bridge be built to enable them to cross the river without boats and canoes, but no action has been taken, and the danger of such incidents continues.
The Shire River is home to a large population of hippos and crocodiles, and the boats and canoes using the river are often overloaded and in poor condition. Boats have capsized and villagers have drowned in the past, but a hippo colliding with a boat is relatively uncommon in that part of Malawi.
Hippos are the second-largest land animal after elephants and are known to be territorial. Female hippos are fiercely defensive of their young, attacking anything they perceive as threatening. These animals are estimated to cause about 500 human fatalities annually in Africa. Males weigh over 3,500 pounds, sometimes as much as 9,000 pounds, while females weigh over 3,500 pounds as well. Despite their massive size and weight, hippos are agile and swift in water and on land.
