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dam-l Mozambique river pollution/LS
Mozambique
Maputo Probes Report of Chemical Waste In Incomati River
Panafrican News Agency
August 8, 1999
Maputo, Mozambique (AIM) - Mozambican health authorities are still trying to determine the seriousness of the
alleged contamination by chemical wastes of the Incomati river in the south of the country, the Mozambican News
Agency (AIM) reported Saturday.
According to the agency, a Mozambican delegation flew to South Africa Friday in search of reliable data on the
pollution.
Several days earlier, the Mozambican authorities had been alerted by their South African counterparts that a paper
factory in the South African town of Nelspruit had allowed wastes to escape into the river, it added.
The local authorities in the town of Moamba, some 60 kilometres northwest of Maputo, immediately stopped
pumping water from the river to fill up the tanks from which many local people are supplied.
On Thursday, what was left in the tanks was quickly exhausted, and Moamba residents were urged to seek alternative
sources of water, such as wells.
But verbal reports reaching Moamba said that examination of the water undertaken in a South African laboratory
showed there was no danger to human health.
The Moamba district health director, Olivia Bucana, cited in Saturday's issue of the Maputo daily 'Noticias', said that
no case of poisoning arising from consumption of water from the Incomati river had yet been reported.
Nonetheless, the authorities have not yet withdrawn their appeal to residents not to drink river water. "We haven't yet
reached any conclusion as to what really happened with the river," Bucana said.
The head of the environmental Health department of the Ministry, Marcelino Lucas, led an investigating team to
Moamba on Friday, and promised to work for a full clarification of the issue.
He said it made no sense for the South Africans first to issue a warning about a serious incident of pollution, and
then deny that there was anything to be worried about.
However, in an appearance disregard of the appeals from the ministry, the local people continue to fish and bathe in
the river, and collect it for domestic use.
Their cattle also drink from the river.
"We never stopped drinking this water, and we don't even boil it", a Moamba resident, Maria Faquir, told the paper.
"Here in the countryside we're not given to such practices. We bathe here, we drink this water, we fish, we take our
livestock to drink at the river - we're used to it. We never felt any difference, even when they told us there was stuff
in the water," she said.
Admitting, however, that the warning had cause a fright, she added, "but we'd already drunk the water and nothing
happened".
Copyright (c) 1999 Panafrican News Agency. Distributed via Africa News Online (www.africanews.org). For
information about the content or for permission to redistribute, publish or use for broadcast, contact the publisher.
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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