Following on the heels of its inauguration announced January 15 (Ethiopia’s Largest Hydrodam Online), Ethiopia’s Gibe II has reportedly suffered from a water passage tunnel collapsing. International Rivers issued a press statement on February 5 that said the 420 MW dam’s 26-km long tunnel had partly collapsed shutting down operations for an extended period.
Caterina Amicucci of the Italian group CRBM said, “Gilgel Gibe demonstrates that cutting corners does not speed up development, but can rather produce costly disasters.” The group has been monitoring the potential for corruption on the huge project, which did not have competitive bidding, in violation of Ethiopia law.
Although the Ethiopian Electric Power Company (EEPCo) has yet to confirm the reports, the dam could take months to repair with damages falling under contractual obligations by the Italian construction company Salini Costractori SpA.
International Rivers argues that the Gilgel Gibe project was awarded without an environmental impact assessment, in violation to Ethiopia’s own law – without an environmental permit and any further extension projects along the Omo River could lead to Environmental Devastation. “If completed, the Gibe III Dam will devastate the fragile ecosystems of the Lower Omo Valley and Kenya’s Lake Turkana, on which 500,000 poor farmers, herders and fisher folk rely for their livelihoods,” said International River’s Africa Director Terri Hathaway.
The Gibe II, valued at about $407 million, is Ethiopia’s first and largest hydroelectric power generating plant that does not have its own dam.
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