29 January 2008
Maputo — Flooding in the Zambezi Valley in central Mozambique seemed set to worsen on Tuesday, with the Cahora Bassa dam increasing its discharges to over 5,900 cubic metres of water a second.
The dam had been releasing water at the rate of 4,850 cubic metres a second over the weekend, but the National Water Board (DBA) reported that the dam dropped the discharge to 3,600 cubic metres a second on Monday.
But it now seems that the DNA and the dam operating company, Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), had their wires crossed. There was no decrease in the amount of water discharged by the dam on Monday. Quite the contrary, in fact.
According to Tuesday's bulletin from the DNA, the discharges from Cahora Bassa rose to 5,400 cubic metres a second on Sunday, and reached 5,950 cubic metres a second on Monday.
This is the highest output from the dam so far this rainy season. It is bound to worsen the situation in the low-lying suburbs of Tete city which were inundated by the Zambezi on Monday. Within a couple of days, this latest surge from Cahora Bassa will reach the lower Zambezi, where large areas of Caia, Marromeu, Mopeia and Chinde districts are already under water.
One bright spot is that the National Meteorology Office (INAM) forecasts a slackening of rainfall in the central provinces in the next 48 hours.
In the south of the country, there has been a rush of water from South Africa down the Elephants river, the major tributary of the Limpopo. This water has all been contained behind the Massingir dam, which was fully rehabilitated last year, and is now regulating the flow of the river.
The level of the Massingir lake at the dam wall, the DNA reports, rose from 115 to 118 metres in just 72 hours. Water was entering the lake at about 1,000 cubic metres a second - but the dam's discharges remained unchanged at just eight cubic metres a second.
The Massingir dam has thus proven its capacity to store hundreds of millions of cubic metres of water, thus helping to prevent serious flooding on the Limpopo.
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