Photos: Fears river in Tete contaminated with sulphur – AIM report

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Photos: Fears river in Tete contaminated with sulphur – AIM report

7:52 CAT | 15 Aug 2019

Pictures: Social Media

A truck carrying sulphur from the central Mozambican port of Beira to the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday night crashed off a bridge over the Mavuzi river in Tete province.

Eye-witnesses told AIM that the driver of the truck and two other occupants of the vehicle died in the accident. The truck was severely damaged, and its highly toxic cargo contaminated the river, posing a risk to anything living in its water or on the banks. Shortly after the accident, dead fish were seen floating in the river.

The health and environmental authorities in Chiuta district have banned the consumption of fish from the river, or vegetables grown on the banks. The local authorities are mobilising the people living near the river not to drink its water or to eat any of the dead fish.

The head of the public relations department in the Tete provincial police command, Deolinda Matsinhe, said that a team is investigating the circumstances of the accident.

“We have to ascertain how this accident occurred and see what measures can be taken to ensure that nothing like it happens again”, she said

A medical source sent to Chiuta told reporters that so far there are no reports of any people poisoned by the river water, but the authorities are on “maximum alert”.

The provincial head of environmental management, Hermenegildo Galimoto, said that samples of the water have been sent for laboratory analysis in Tete city, to assess the extent of the sulphur contamination.

The laboratory results should be available on Thursday, “and new measures will be taken depending on those results”, said Galimoto.

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