Floods expected, but not as bad as 1999

Exceptionally heavy rains in the Sahel region are likely to cause severe flooding of the Senegal river, innundating crops, towns and villages along its banks in Mali, Senegal and Mauritania, water experts have said. But they added that flooding was likely to prove less severe than in 1999, when the 1,800 km-long river last burst its banks, causing heavy damage and loss of life. The Organisation for the Development of The Senegal River (OMVS), an authority set up by the three countries to develop the irrigation, hydro-electric and transport potential of the river, said on Wednesday it was only able to control 40 to 45 percent of the water in the river bed. OMVS high commissioner Mohamed Salem Ould Merzoug told IRIN in Dakar that his organisation was unable to control the 55 to 60 percent of the river's water volume that was gushing from temporary streams. Merzoug said teams from the OMVS were looking at ways of diverting some of the excess water into temporary lakes by the construction of dykes. The Mauritanian-born official said the OMVS would also try and limit flooding by controlled releases of water from the Manantali dam in Mali and the Diama dam on the border between Senegal and Mauritania. These releases would inevitably raise water levels in the river bed, but in a controlled manner so as to limit damage, he stressed. Merzoug urged the authorities in Mali, Senegal and Mauritania to prevent people building houses in areas near the river prone to seasonal flooding. He also called on the three governments to build better drainage systems to channel rainwater safely and to improve the drainage of existing communities that are at risk of innundation. Hundreds of thousands of people live along the Senegal river which rises in the Fouta Djallon mountains of Guinea and flows north towards the edge of the Sahara desert before swinging west to empty into the Atlantic Ocean. Its water is used irrigate large areas of rice, sugar cane, maize and tomatoes as well as grazing land for livestock. The Inter-state Committee for Fighting Drought in the Sahel (CILSS), an organisation based in Niamey, the capital of Niger, warned on Tuesday that water levels in the Senegal River would probably reach danger levels on September 9. Saint Louis, a Senegalese city situated on an island at the mouth of the river, is often among the first towns to be flooded. Last week farmers in northern Senegal informed the authorities that their crops were threatened by a rising tributary of the Senegal river. And in the Tambacounda region of eastern Senegal, 200 villagers were evacuated from their homes after the Gambia river overflowed its banks, causing massive damage to local banana plantations. About a dozen people have been killed in Senegal as a result of heavy rainfall since early July. The exceptional downpours have caused hundred of buildings to collapse, blocked roads, swept away bridges and drowned large numbers of livestock. Elsewhere in the Sahel, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad have also enjoyed good rains during the current wet season, which begun in May and is expected to end next month. Burkina Faso expects to record its heaviest rainfall for 30 years, the Burkinabe meteorological service announced last week. In Niger, the CILSS reported that the volume of water flowing in the Niger river in Niamey in July was eight times greater than usual for the time of year.