The spillway of Tajikistan’s Sarez Dam is threatening hundreds of villages around Amu River in Afghanistan, the Minister of State for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs Wais Ahmad Barmak said on Wednesday.
An investigation by Afghan experts indicates that the spillway was a matter of great concern and Afghanistan is trying to take the necessary measures to avoid the possible dangerous outflow from the dam, he said.
“The recent reports about the dam are serious concern. We will therefore continue our efforts to address the problem. However, so far we don’t have more information about the state of the dam,” Barmak said.
According to the Afghan ministry of water and energy, Tajikistan’s Sarez lake currently holds more than 16 billion cubic meters of water. The ministry warned that if the dam’s capacity was exceeded, the outflow will raise the level of water in the Amu River.
Meanwhile the office of the chief executive officer has called on vulnerable countries to coordinate to avoid possible threats from the dam.
“The Afghan government is in contact with aid groups to solve the problem,” the Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah’s deputy spokesman Jawed Faisal said.
No country has benefited economically from the Sarez dam, but the ministry of water and energy has warned that more than five million people who are living around the Amu River will be affected if the dam collapsed.
It is said that not one of the countries located around the dam, has the capacity to evacuate people from the waters from the dam should a disaster occur.
“Measures should be taken for the big problem which is on its way. The flow of the dam is very dangerous,” Wais-ul-Rahman, head of technical board of the Ministry of Energy and Water.
An overview of Sarez Lake:
Sarez Lake is a lake in Rushon District of Gorno-Badakhshan province, Tajikistan. Its length is about 75.8 kilometres (47.1 mi). Its depth is a few hundred meters and water surface elevation is about 3,263 meters (10,705 ft) above sea level. The dam has a volume of water more than 16 billion cubic meters (3.8 cu mi). The mountains around the lake rise more than 2,300 metres (7,500 ft) above the lake level.
The lake was formed in 1911 after a great earthquake, when the Murghab River was blocked by a big landslide. Scientists believe that the dam formed by the earthquake, known as the Usoi Dam, is unstable given the seismic structure of the area. As a result, the terrain below the lake is in danger of a catastrophic flood if the dam were to fail during a future earthquake.