JEDDAH: Fears that the massive earth dam holding the sewage lake (Musk lake) in the hills east of Jeddah might burst and flood the city appear somewhat exaggerated.
An Arab News team went to investigate the dam on Tuesday and it appeared there was little to worry about. On Monday, the Civil Defense warned residents in Jeddah’s Al-Samr 3 district to evacuate their homes, fearing that the dam might burst. The warning sparked panic among residents elsewhere in eastern areas of the city.
The dam, some 20 meters wide, appeared in good repair. There were no breaches to be seen. What could be seen however, were a number of reporters, a couple of TV crews and carloads of sightseers. A bemused policeman in his vehicle paid little attention to the proceedings. No one was worried. No one was running away in panic, as had been the case the day before.
The water had risen to the 10.5 meters mark according to a measurement pole just by the dam. It could rise another three and a half meters before it would be level with the top of the dam. But by then, the waters would have flooded eastward and southward, away from Jeddah.
Indeed, so flat is the land stretching away to the east that if it rose just another meter, the lake would more than double in size.
Nonetheless, there have been reports of the smaller evaporation lakes downstream of the main one overfilling and of the smaller containment dam, seven kilometers nearer Jeddah, being weakened in the floods. Arab News had also been informed by engineers that the main dam will hold and that leaks to it were repaired a year ago. But were there to be more rains like last Wednesday’s, they feared it might burst.
The scale of devastation in the area around the lake and the nearby hills, however, was as awesome as anything in east Jeddah. The hills on the way to the lake contain a large number of small farms and nurseries.
The force of the floodwaters had smashed through buildings and walls, stripped out trees in their thousands and ripped away not just road surfaces but their very foundations. New lakes had appeared, dotted with half submerged trucks. Any cars trapped in the floods would have been completely drowned.
Elsewhere, vehicles were trapped deep in sand dunes that a week ago did not exist. It was clear that tens of thousands of tons of water, possibly millions, had swept through the area. In some areas to the lake’s east and south, everything had been swept away by the waters, leaving just flat and level sands stretching far away. Shelley’s great poem on the transience of human efforts and the ruined statue of the once mighty Ozymandias, desolate in the lone desert, leapt to mind.
On the road back to Jeddah, we asked some African farm workers if they had heard the warnings about the dam. They had. “But where would we go? Our homes are here. Our work is here. We know no one in Jeddah.”
They told another interesting fact. “Since the rains, no sewage tankers have been coming to the lake.”
This raised questions as to where the tankers are now unloading their contents. There were certainly no signs of any around. However, on the way up to the lake, in the hills east of Ajwad district, a number of small lakes had appeared in low lying areas. They might have been filled by floodwater but they looked distinctly brown and there was an unmistakable smell of sewage in the air.
