A haunting photo shows a tourist walking to the edge of Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls – just before plunging more than 100 feet to his death, according to local media.
Roy George Tinashe Dikinya, 40, took turns taking photos with his family from the top of the massive waterfall as he tumbled over the side, witnesses told Newsday in Zimbabwe.
“We were warned by the woman’s scream and she told us he slipped and fell,” one told the Dikinya newspaper, who was wearing sandals and holding various things in his left hand in the photo.
“Because of the showers and the fog, we could not trace him afterwards,” said the witness.
Rescue workers from the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority found body parts trapped at the bottom of the canyon, which is at least 100 meters high, the Chronicle said.
The body parts “are trapped in rocks,” the authority’s spokesman, Tinashe Farawo, told the newspaper.
“We have not been able to positively identify him because of where the body is trapped, but we are sure it is his body,” he said.
“We are currently in communication with other security experts, including the military, to try to find ways to retrieve the body,” he said, with the option of using a military helicopter.
Government Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu sent his “sincere condolences” to the tourist’s family from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, more than 400 miles from the falls, The Herald said.
“This is a rare, tragic and unfortunate incident witnessed at the mighty Victoria Falls,” said Ndlovu, promising that “all necessary precautions will be taken to prevent such an unfortunate incident from occurring again.”
It’s just the latest tragedy where people take photos from dangerous places. Just a few weeks ago, a Brazilian man died after falling from a waterfall while taking a selfie.