THE tragedy on Lake Kariba has renewed attention on a question that is easy to overlook until disaster strikes: what happens after a warning is issued, and can people act on it?
The recent ferry tragedy, in which lives were lost and others remained missing, is a painful reminder that living and working on one of Zimbabwe’s largest inland lakes carries significant risks. Reports of high waves and the continuing questions surrounding the incident have understandably focused attention on safety, preparedness and emergency response.
But there is another question worth asking: how effectively are warnings about hazardous conditions detected, communicated and acted on by people whose livelihoods depend on the lake?
This is not a question I began asking because of the recent tragedy. I examined it in a study of community-based early warning systems among small-scale fishing communities along the southern shoreline of Lake Kariba. The study was completed and published in March 2026, several months before the recent ferry tragedy.
The tragedy does not prove that early warning failed. But it does give us reason to revisit a question we should ask before disasters occur: when warnings are issued, can people actually act on them?
The research does not explain the cause of the ferry accident, and it would be inappropriate to suggest that it does. But it does offer a pre-disaster account of some operational challenges affecting early warning and preparedness in a Lake Kariba fishing community.
The study drew on interviews with government and other stakeholders, household interviews, and focus group discussions. It examined not only whether warning systems existed, but how they functioned in practice.
One of the clearest findings was that communities are not simply passive recipients of warnings.
Fishers and residents possess considerable knowledge of their environment. They observe changes in wind, clouds, water conditions, and other environmental signals, and communicate information through established social networks. In many situations, these informal networks can be among the quickest ways of alerting people to an emerging threat.
Yet the research also found important weaknesses.
Monitoring equipment was inadequate or poorly maintained. Access to official forecasts was limited, and some forecasts were not sufficiently accessible or relevant to the realities of people living and working on the lake. Communication equipment was limited, while emergency resources and preparedness activities were also constrained.
This points to an important distinction that is sometimes lost in discussions about disaster preparedness: having a preparedness measure is not the same as being able to act on it.
A plan may exist. Equipment may have been provided. A warning mechanism may have been established.
The more important question is whether these things remain functional when they are needed, so that people can act on them.
An early warning system is a chain.
Someone must detect a hazard. Information must be interpreted. A warning must reach those exposed to the hazard. People must understand what it means. They must have realistic means to act on it. And, where assistance is required, emergency and response systems must be capable of supporting them.
A weakness at any point can undermine the effectiveness of the system.
This matters particularly on Lake Kariba, where many people depend directly on the lake for their livelihoods. For fishing communities, avoiding the lake altogether is not always a realistic option. Exposure to weather and other hazards is therefore intertwined with economic survival.
The communities we studied had developed their own ways of managing this reality. Informal communication networks, local environmental knowledge and community relationships formed an important part of the warning process.
The implication is not that scientific forecasts should be replaced by local knowledge.
Rather, the two need to work together.
A meteorological forecast can provide information about an approaching weather system. A fisher may have detailed knowledge of how particular wind conditions behave in a specific part of the lake. A community leader may know how quickly information can move between landing sites. A local volunteer may know who is likely to need assistance when conditions deteriorate.
These forms of knowledge are different, but they can be complementary.
This is why the research points to greater co-production of early warnings: bring communities, fishers, meteorological authorities, water authorities, disaster-management officials and other relevant actors into closer conversation about how risk is interpreted and communicated.
As investigations into the tragedy continue, it is also useful to ask a broader preparedness question: how does safety information travel across Lake Kariba, and what happens when people receive it?
Are warnings reaching people on the water?
Are they reaching them early enough?
Are they expressed in ways that lake users can readily understand?
Are communication systems still functioning when electricity, batteries or mobile networks are unavailable?
Do communities have the equipment and resources required to respond?
And, perhaps most importantly, do people have realistic options for acting when a warning is received?
These are not questions that forecasting alone can answer.
They concern the last mile of the warning system; the point at which information reaches the person who must decide whether to act.
This is where some of the less visible work of disaster preparedness matters.
Reliable radios can matter. So can functioning monitoring equipment, clearly designated warning focal points, locally understood messages and regular preparedness exercises. None of these necessarily requires sophisticated technology. But they do require maintenance, coordination and sustained attention.
The research also highlighted a less obvious challenge: community preparedness cannot simply depend on goodwill indefinitely. Community volunteers may have important roles in warning and response, but they also have livelihoods and responsibilities of their own.
This raises a broader question about how community-based early warning systems are supported over time.
Too often, preparedness is treated as something that can be demonstrated by the existence of a plan, a committee, a piece of equipment, or a training session.
But preparedness is less about what exists on paper than what can actually be relied upon when conditions deteriorate.
The tragedy on Lake Kariba should not lead us to conclude, without a proper investigation, that failures in early warning caused the ferry accident. Its specific causes and contributing factors must still be established through the appropriate investigations.
Nor should the tragedy be used to suggest that communities around the lake are unaware of the risks they face. The research suggests otherwise. People living and working on the lake have considerable experience of changing conditions and have developed ways of communicating risk among themselves.
The challenge is to connect that knowledge and experience more effectively with formal systems of forecasting, warning and emergency response.
For communities living and working around Lake Kariba, early warning is not an abstract concept. It can influence whether someone remains on the water, returns to shore, seeks shelter, alerts another household or mobilises assistance.
That is what ultimately makes an early warning system more than a forecast: whether people can act on it.
A warning has value when it reaches the person who needs it, in time, in a form they can understand, and when there is something they can realistically do with it.
Lake Kariba’s tragedy should prompt us to look carefully at that last part: whether warnings are issued, whether the systems behind them are reliable, and whether people can act when they need to most.
Focus not only on whether warnings are issued, but on whether the systems behind them are reliable enough for people to act when they need to.
*The author is a disaster risk researcher and can be contacted at dmabumbo@gmail.com