Case file · Folklore / legend
Nyami Nyami and the Kariba floods
When the Zambezi flooded in 1957 and again the next season, wrecking the half-built Kariba Dam, the Tonga people said the river god Nyami Nyami was angry.
1957 CE · -16.52, 28.76 · status: account
The account
Building began in 1956 and the Tonga were moved off their riverbank homes. The 1957 flood was called the worst ever known on the Zambezi, and the following year's was worse, destroying the coffer dam and access bridge and killing workers. Stories say some bodies vanished and reappeared days later. Tonga belief holds that the dam wall separated Nyami Nyami from his wife.
The sceptical view
The floods were extreme but natural; the dam was finished and switched on in 1960.