There was a road from Ndola across the border to Sakania in the Congo, and a dirt road to a small ferry over the Luapula at Kapalala, but it was not a direct route, took at least a day to travel, and was not suitable for the heavier vehicles. Eventually in the late 1940s the Northern Rhodesia government realised the need for a larger, direct road from the Copperbelt to Fort Rosebery (Mansa) with a higher-capacity ferry over the Luapula. Negotiations with the Belgian colonial authorities produced an agreement for Northern Rhodesia to build and maintain a 70-km graded laterite road from Mokambo (16 km from the Copperbelt town of Mufulira) to Chembe. Although only used by Northern Rhodesia and with no Congolese settlements except Mokambo on its route, it had border control posts at both ends and traffic drove on the right. By the 1950s the Chembe Ferry had two motorised pontoons able to take the largest trucks, the border posts worked smoothly and the 174-km drive from Mufulira to Mansa could be completed in four or five hours. By comparison the same journey keeping to roads within the country was 1166 km and took at least two days, going via Kapiri Mposhi, Mpika, Kasama and Luwingu. In the past four decades the superiority of the Katangan roads has reversed, with the Lubumbashi-Kasenga road deteriorating to the extent that it may take several days to reach Kasenga. Congolese travellers and goods frequently cross into the Zambian Copperbelt from Lubumbashi and take the Pedicle or the Samfya-Serenje road to Kasenga. Apart from the Luapula occasionally bursting its banks at Chembe in the rainy season and halting the Chembe Ferry for a few days, this happy state of affairs continued until the Congo Crisis of 1961 when travel on the pedicle stopped for security reasons and had to be routed by air or via Kasama. Although the interruption did not last long, it highlighted the vulnerability of the route. The Congo became independent in 1960 and changed its name to Zaire in 1971, and Northern Rhodesia became independent in 1964, as Zambia. Any thought that two African neighbours with shared tribal, cultural and historical origins could cooperate even better than neighbouring colonial powers was dispelled not long after. The colonial experience had broken down those connections which might have smoothed travel by Zambians through Zaire and replaced them with a bureaucracy and leadership whose allegiances had greatly changed and who saw how to exploit regulations and authority for their own gains.