Although the building of the Kariba Dam was surrounded by controversy, both environmentally and socially, it is an impressive monument to man’s engineering expertise. The massive valley, which now forms Lake Kariba has survived, with most plant and animal species having adapted to the changed conditions. Once Zambia realises the huge tourist potential the lake offers, there are many positive implications for the struggling economy and unemployment problems in the area. The Tonga People, whose traditional lands lie buried beneath the lake, would probably benefit most from tourist development.

When the dam was completed in 1960 it was the largest man-made dam ever built. Two hundred and twenty kilometres long and in places up to forty kilometres wide, it provides considerable electric power to both Zambia and Zimbabwe and supports a thriving commercial fishing industry.

The lake’s vastness creates spectacular panoramas as the sun casts its glow across the shimmering waters catching the distinctive half-submerged trees and islands.

Nyaminyami

The name Kariba (Kariva - meaning trap) refers to a rock which thrust out of the swirling water at the entrance to the gorge close to the dam wall site, now buried more than a hundred feet below the water surface. In many legends, this rock was regarded as the home of the great River god Nyaminyami, who caused anyone who ventured near to be sucked down for ever into the depths of the river.

When the valley people heard they were to be moved from their tribal lands and the great Zambezi River blocked, they believed it would anger the river god so much that he would cause the water to boil and destroy the white man’s bridge with floods.

In 1957, a year into the building of the dam, the river rose to flood level, pumping through the gorge with immense power, destroying some equipment and the access roads. The odds against another flood occurring the following year were about a thousand to one - but flood it did - three metres higher than the previous year. This time destroying the access bridge, the coffer dam and parts of the main wall. Nyaminyami had made good his threat. He had recaptured the gorge. His waters passed over the wreckage of his enemies at more than sixteen million litres a second, a flood which, it had been calculated, would only happen once in ten thousand years. Although man eventually won the battle when the dam was finally opened in 1960, there was a whole new respect for the power of the river god.