World's Biggest Dam Drains, Intensifying Zambia Power Crisis
- Kariba dam water levels have fallen to 21% of capacity
- Power costs seen causing finance minister `sleepless nights'
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Zambia’s power deficit will widen by 42 percent by December as low water levels at the world’s biggest dam hobble hydropower production in the southern African country, Energy Minister Dora Siliya said.
The shortfall will increase to 1,000 megawatts from 700 megawatts now, she told lawmakers Thursday in the capital, Lusaka. The Kariba dam, where Africa’s second-largest copper producer generates almost half of its 2,300 megawatt of total capacity, is running out of water, and output next year will have to be lower than in 2015 or stop altogether, Siliya said.