How and why this flood happened
This flood did not happen because of excessive rainfall in the Caprivi, contrary to what everyone believe, and the Caprivi did not have any rain in the past 3 weeks.
The flooding is due to the huge amounts of rainfall in the Zambezi River Catchment Area in Southern Congo, Angola's Lunda Plateu and North Eastern Zambia. Water is taken into the Zambezi (red on the map) via different brances, like the West Lunga and Kabompo Rivers, The Lungua-Bungo River, the Luena River, the Luanguinga and Lumbe Rivers. This waters gain momentum downwards over the Liuwa Plain and Barotse Plains in Western Zambia and when reaching Katiam Mulilo in Namibia, where the Zambezi starts to form the border between Zambia and Namibia, it is quite fastflowing and rise rapidly. The flooding of this year (2009) in Ovambo land, Northern Central Namibia and also declared a disaster area, is also due to the excessive rainfall that happened in Angola's highlands.
Because of the constant rapidly increasing levels of the river, (the Zambezi rose over a meter in the week between 7 March 2009 and 15 March 2009 (photos bottom of the Flooding Page), and a further meter between 15 March and 22 March 2009 the Zambezi totally spilled over it's banks and flooded into the Mulapos, lowerlying ground areas close to the Zambezi. But because of the huge surge in the levels this year, water started surging over all of the land in a quest to reach Lake Liambezi through the numerous spillways (sort of informal channels) and took away roads, villages and crops in it's path, causing the worst floods in 40 years, and the second worst in over 120 years.
The alitude of the Caprivi is however a bit lower than Zambia and Botswana, thus pushing the water into the Caprivi, causing about a third of the Eastern Caprivi to become submerged. Zambia is slightly affected in certain areas, but does not have the total vastness of flooded land that we in the Caprivi have. (extra flooding areas, not just along the river) The Zambezi then flooded over the land to the Chobe river, as well as pushed back into the Chobe as well! (see how the Chobe and Linyanti Rivers work button)
Although the Caprivi had a good rainfall itself, this created only one flashflood in the Katima region, which cleared itself up within one week.
The flooding is due to the huge amounts of rainfall in the Zambezi River Catchment Area in Southern Congo, Angola's Lunda Plateu and North Eastern Zambia. Water is taken into the Zambezi (red on the map) via different brances, like the West Lunga and Kabompo Rivers, The Lungua-Bungo River, the Luena River, the Luanguinga and Lumbe Rivers. This waters gain momentum downwards over the Liuwa Plain and Barotse Plains in Western Zambia and when reaching Katiam Mulilo in Namibia, where the Zambezi starts to form the border between Zambia and Namibia, it is quite fastflowing and rise rapidly. The flooding of this year (2009) in Ovambo land, Northern Central Namibia and also declared a disaster area, is also due to the excessive rainfall that happened in Angola's highlands.
Because of the constant rapidly increasing levels of the river, (the Zambezi rose over a meter in the week between 7 March 2009 and 15 March 2009 (photos bottom of the Flooding Page), and a further meter between 15 March and 22 March 2009 the Zambezi totally spilled over it's banks and flooded into the Mulapos, lowerlying ground areas close to the Zambezi. But because of the huge surge in the levels this year, water started surging over all of the land in a quest to reach Lake Liambezi through the numerous spillways (sort of informal channels) and took away roads, villages and crops in it's path, causing the worst floods in 40 years, and the second worst in over 120 years.
The alitude of the Caprivi is however a bit lower than Zambia and Botswana, thus pushing the water into the Caprivi, causing about a third of the Eastern Caprivi to become submerged. Zambia is slightly affected in certain areas, but does not have the total vastness of flooded land that we in the Caprivi have. (extra flooding areas, not just along the river) The Zambezi then flooded over the land to the Chobe river, as well as pushed back into the Chobe as well! (see how the Chobe and Linyanti Rivers work button)
Although the Caprivi had a good rainfall itself, this created only one flashflood in the Katima region, which cleared itself up within one week.
 |
 |