Mozambique: HCB urges communities to leave flood prone areas – AIM report

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Mozambique: HCB urges communities to leave flood prone areas – AIM report

3:15 CAT | 13 Sep 2022

File photo: HCB

The company Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), which operates the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi river, in the western Mozambican province of Tete, warns that it will start discharging water from 1 October to improve water storage capacity in the reservoir and allow better management of the dam during the coming rainy season.

Hence, HCB management is advising the communities to leave the low lying and flood prone areas.

According to the Wednesday issue of the daily “Notícias,” the warning comes from HCB’s Director for Water Resources and Environment Rosaque Guale during a visit to the dam by a team of international consultants who are working on the feasibility of the Mphanda Nkuwa Hydro-electric project.

Both HCB and Electricity of Mozambique (EDM) have been appointed to represent the government in the Phanda Nkuwa project.

Guale explained that the discharges are part of the dam management, and since the end of the past rainy season in April, the spillway was closed.

“Our forecasts indicate what we should expect in coming the rainy season and it gives us a greater degree of confidence that we will have water to receive which will have to find space in the reservoir to prevent flooding downstream,” he said.

Guale took the opportunity to urge the communities growing crops on the banks of the Zambezi River to begin withdrawing farming implements and harvest those crops that have reached maturity to prevent losses once the spillways are opened.

“Right now the flow is about 1,800 meters per second, and with the opening of the discharger, we will reach about 3,600 cubic meters per second, the equivalent of the water that is currently flowing in the Zambezi. So, this is a reason for concern because there is a risk of flooding in the areas close to the river banks”, he warned.

He reminded that water discharges occur annually and are an integral part of dam management and now it’s time for the population to start adapting to these cycles.

He added that currently Cahora Bassa reservoir is 95.22 percent full, which makes discharges unavoidable at this stage for the good of the population, but also for the safety of the dam.

Source: AIM