A Zambezi River Authority conference was held in March 2014, engineers warned that the
foundations of the dam had weakened and there was a possibility of dam failure unless repairs
were made.
On 3 October 2014 the BBC reported that “The Kariba Dam is in a dangerous state. Opened in
1959, it was built on a seemingly solid bed of basalt. However, in the past 50 years, the torrents
from the spillway have eroded that bedrock, carving a vast crater that has undercut the dam’s
foundations, engineers are now warning that without urgent repairs, the whole dam will collapse.
If that happened, a tsunami-like wall of water would rip through the Zambezi valley, reaching
the Mozambique border within eight hours. The torrent would overwhelm Mozambique’s
Cahora Bassa Dam and knock out 40% of southern Africa’s hydroelectric capacity. Along with
the devastation of wildlife in the