The Congo River has the second largest flow rate in the world after the Amazon, which has no falls or rapids (except near its sources).

This is an extraordinarily narrow channel since the river flow rate typically exceeds 42,000 cubic metres per second (1,500,000 cu ft/s).

Although he explored the upper Congo, Livingstone never travelled to this part of the river and the falls were named in his honour by Henry Morton Stanley.

If I looked up or down along this angry scene, every interval of 50 or 100 yards of it was marked by wave-towers - their collapse into foam and spray, the mad clash of watery hills, bounding mounds and heaving billows, while the base of either bank, consisting of a long line of piled boulders of massive size, was buried in the tempestuous surf.

This hydro-electric generator would be almost double the current world record holder, which is the Three Gorges facility at 22.5GW on the Yangtze River in China.