Dæmningen er gammel, fundamenterne skrøbelige og bag den holder en 128 meter høj betonmur Zambezi-floden fanget – men hvad nu hvis floden slipper ud af sine lænker? Svar: Vandmasserne tordner gennem fire lande med uoverskuelige humanitære og økonomiske konsekvenser.
HARARE, 9 April 2014 (IRIN): Could fears of the imminent collapse of the more than five-decade-old Kariba Dam on the Zambezi river between Zimbabwe and Zambia spur Zimbabwe into more effective disaster preparedness?
In early March, engineers at a conference organized by the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA, a Zambia-Zimbabwe organization which manages the Kariba Dam) warned that the 128-metre-high dam could collapse (en af Københavns højeste bygninger, Rådhustårnet, er til sammenligning 105,6 meter, red.).
This would be a serious threat to at least 3,5 million people especially in Mozambique and Malawi further down-stream.
Years of erosion had made the foundations of the dam weaker, said engineers.
“Anything is possible, so there is a need to act to avoid risk and minimize panic,” Modibo Traore, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) in Zimbabwe, told IRIN.
The Kariba Dam holds one of the largest man-made expanses of water in the world.
ZRA says the “situation at the Kariba Dam wall is a cause for grave concern”, and “all urgency is expected in order to avert any such catastrophe as dam failure”. It acknowledged the need for major repairs.
Zambia Finance ministry permanent secretary Felix Nkulukusa, stated that Zambia and Zimbabwe need 250 million US dollar (ca. 1,3 milliarder DKR) to avert the major humanitarian and economic devastation in case of a dam-collapse.
According to “Times of Zambia”, the government in Lusaka had approached the European Union (EU), World Bank and African development Bank (ADB) for assistance in major repairs of the dam.
Preparedness for disaster?
Disaster preparedness in Zimbabwe is extremely weak, if the example of recent flooding involving a partially built dam is anything to go by.
In February, flooding of the Tokwe-Mukosi dam in southeastern Zimbabwe displaced thousands of people, and forced the government to declare it a national disaster.
Affected villagers have been moved to temporary shelters within Masvingo Province where the dam is located, but many are struggling to cope with the lack of food, clothing and medicines. The government has been criticized for being ill-prepared.
Madzudzo Pawadyira, director of the Civil Protection Unit (CPU) which comes under the Ministry of Local Government, said they had learned lessons from the Tokwe-Mukosi disaster and were doing their best to prepare for a possible crisis at Kariba.
“The Tokwe-Mukosi disaster took us by surprise as we had not foreseen water rising to that level, but the fact that anything can happen any time… has taught [us to] be on our guard all the time, even when information available shows there might not be an immediate threat,” Pawadyira told IRIN.
A national disaster contingency plan team was caught off guard by the Tokwe-Mukosi flooding as it “was not in our scenarios”, said Traore.
Shortages of resources
Despite what Pawadyira described as “meticulous (omhyggelig) planning around disaster risk”, his department’s efforts were hampered by shortages of money and human resources.
“In the case of Tokwe-Mukosi, we have for years had plans to move people and livestock from the vicinity of the dam, but managed to resettle only a few households because of lack of funding. The suddenness and magnitude of that and other disasters have also put us under immense stress,” he said.
Local communities in flood-prone (udsatte) areas, said Pawadyira, have resisted the CPU’s efforts to move people to higher ground and “we don’t have powers to forcefully move them, thus mostly depend on politicians to try and convince them to settle elsewhere, but with little success.”
Repair work could start in 2015
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/report/99904/kariba-dam-collapse-fears-and-disaster-preparedness-in-zimbabwe
Se mere om Kariba-dæmningen i det sydlige Afrika på
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kariba_Dam
