HARARE, Aug. 18 -- Families waited through Saturday in the corridors of a provincial hospital, watching officials work through the names of the dead. By Monday, Zimbabwe's national police had confirmed 92 bodies recovered from Lake Kariba, eight days after a passenger ferry capsized with 153 people aboard, 63 more than its certified limit. Eighteen of the dead were children.

The toll rose again over the weekend, from 84 to 92, as divers continued retrieving bodies from the sunken vessel on the southwestern reaches of the lake, near the Zambian border. Four boats and more than 40 divers remained deployed. Officials gave no timeline for when the recovery phase would end.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who had declared a state of national d...