A BRAVE Zimbabwean tour guide is presumed dead after plunging 90m into the Victoria Falls while trying to rescue a tourist, police said.

The unnamed man was working for South African tour company, Sunway Safaris, reports said on Sunday.

The man was accompanying several western tourists on the Zambian side of the world’s largest waterfall. Here, tourists swim dangerously close to the tipping point of the falls, only prevented from falling by a slippery, submerged lip of rock.

Only the brave attempt a swim in the aptly named Devil’s Pool – and tour guides are tasked with ensuring their safety.

It was in fulfilling this duty that the tragic tour guide dived into the water to rescue a stranded tourists last Wednesday.

A witness told the Sunday Mail: “The tour guide quickly grabbed the tourist’s hand and successfully pulled him back into the pool but in the process, he slipped and fell into the gorge down below.”

Stretching their luck ... A tourist, oblivious of the danger, takes a snap of the falls

Chief Inspector Chisoni, in charge of the Victoria Falls Police Station (Zambia), said the tour guide is believed to have driven the tourists from South Africa. They set up base at the Water Front hotel in Livingstone.

Last Wednesday, the tourists visited the Victoria Falls rainforest before a trip to the Devil’s Pool.

Locals say deaths at the site are rare, occurring at the rate of one death every year.

One resident said: “People should just be banned from going near that place because it is dangerous. On the Zimbabwean side, there are barriers put in place. That should be done on the Zambian side as well.”

Crazy ... A woman tourist with baby on the edge of the Victoria Falls gorge

Dicing with Death in the Devil's Pool