Syrdarya could burst its banks, impacting up to one million people

If the Chardara water reservoir in the extreme south of Kazakhstan were to overflow, up to 1 million people living downstream along the Syrdarya river, that the reservoir flows into, could be flooded out, government officials warned on Tuesday. The Syrdarya is one of two important rivers in Central Asia, along with the Amudarya. "The situation is dangerous, particularly as we have got a very big water inflow and we cannot make huge discharges because the river downstream can't handle more water," Amirkhan Kenchimov, the deputy head of the water resources agency at the Kazakh agriculture ministry, told IRIN from the capital, Astana on Tuesday. Earlier, when there were no settlements downstream the ancient river would burst its banks reaching 15-29 km in width at natural high waters, the government official added. "However, there are now settlements everywhere [on the banks] and we cannot allow that," he maintained. He went on to say that there were now 4.5 billion cubic metres of water in the Chardara reservoir, while its capacity was 5.2 billion cubic metres, adding that only some 700 million cubic metres of its projected capacity left, was dangerously little. However, Kairzhan Turezhanov, a press secretary at the Kazakh emergency situations agency, told IRIN there was little cause for concern. "The situation has normalised and they have discharged water from the [Chardara] reservoir into the Arnasay depression [a reservoir in neighbouring Uzbekistan]," he told IRIN from Astana, adding that in an effort to prevent a disaster, colleagues from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan came on Monday and decided to discharge the water. According to some reports, the inflow of water into the Chardara reservoir had started to exceed normal levels last September, due to heavy rains in the Central Asian region. Water flows in to the Syrdarya have also increased because upstream Kyrgyzstan had discharged huge amounts of water through its hydroelectric power stations on the Naryn river, a tributary of the Syrdarya, in winter over recent years. This has been due to growing seasonal energy needs for heating, especially when Uzbekistan cut natural gas supplies to its mountainous neighbour because Bishkek wasn't paying the bills. Turezhanov of the emergency agency added that as of 25 December, the water inflow in to the Chardara reservoir was 1,300 cubic metres per second, while the discharge was only 550 cubic metres per second. "Can you imagine the volume?" he asked, adding that areas of Kzyl-Orda province on the banks of Syrdarya river were vulnerable to the flooding as a result. "If the dam bursts there won't any settlement left downstream," Kenchomov warned. But Turezhanov said that because the water discharge had been initiated on Monday, following tripartite talks in Shymkent, the water level would normalise in 5-6 days. "Therefore, there is no threat of the dam to burst," he said. "There we made a decision to reduce the inflow into the Syrdarya river. This means Kyrgyzstan has to reduce the production of hydro-electricity and for that we are supplying coal and fuel oil to Bishkek's thermal power station, while the Uzbeks are expected to supply much more natural gas," Kenchimov explained. Uzbekistan is also expected to increase water consumption for irrigation and to ensure water discharge of 650 cubic metres per second from Chardara into the Arnasay reservoir located on its territory. Also, water would be chanelled to irrigation canals and used for watering fields as a preventive measure, Kenchimov noted. The Chardara reservoir started operating in 1964 and was built for irrigation purposes aimed at controlling the flow of the mighty Syrdarya, preventing flooding during high water times and acting as a water source during dry periods.