18 January 2008
Maputo — The Cahora Bassa dam, in the central Mozambican province of Tete, has reduced its discharges into the Zambezi river from 5,500 to 5,200 cubic metres a second, according to the latest bulletin from the National Water Board (DNA).
This doubtless contributes to the fall in the level of the Zambezi along its upper reaches. Thus at Tete city, the river fell from 5.53 metres on Wednesday to 5.42 metres on Thursday. Further downstream, at Mutarara, the fall was from 6.45 to 6.39 metres. But the river is still in flood, since in both Tete and Mutarara the alert level is five metres.
The earlier flood surge is still reaching the lower Zambezi, where the river continues to rise. At Caia, where the alert level is also five metres, the river was measured at 7.75 metres on Wednesday and 7.82 metres on Thursday. This means that the flood at Caia has already exceeded by 25 centimetres the maximum level attained during the February 2007 flood.
The same is likely to happen at Marromeu, where the river stood at 7.03 metres on Thursday (the alert level here is 4.75 metres).
The level of the Pungue river at Mafambisse in Sofala province remains more or less stationary. It rose from 7.65 metres on Tuesday to 7.68 metres on Wednesday, before falling back to 7.64 metres on Thursday. The alert level here is six metres. The Pungue still poses a serious threat to the Beira-Zimbabwe road.
There were also serious floods earlier this month on the Buzi and the Save rivers, but both have now dropped to well below alert level. The Buzi at Goonda was measured at 3.4 metres on Thursday - 1.6 metres below the alert level.
At Vila Franca do Save, where the alert level is 5.5 metres, the Save has dropped rapidly - from 6.01 metres on Tuesday, to 5.16 on Wednesday and 4.62 on Thursday.
In the south, the Limpopo river is still above the alert level of 4.5 metres at Combomune on its upper reaches, although it fell from 4.97 to 4.64 metres between Wednesday and Thursday. But there is no sign of flooding on the lower Limpopo - at the two main cities on the river, Chokwe and Xai-Xai, the river has not reached alert level.
However, this could change in the near future. The weather forecast for this weekend is for heavy rains in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, which could pose a serious threat to the Limpopo valley.
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