Zanzibar starts rationing water in capital amid drought

Authorities in Tanzania's semiautonomous state of Zanzibar started rationing water in the capital due to shortages at reservoirs caused by a searing drought that has placed millions at risk of famine across east Africa, officials said.

Zanzibar's water department said pumping at the island's two main reservoirs has dropped from 14 million litres (3.7 mln US gallons) per day to four million litres (one mln US gallons) owing to a shortage of rain.

"The only option is to start rationing the little water we get. This is the only immediate solution to help people to get little water in Zanzibar Town," said Hemed Salim, the department's head.

Of the island's population of about a million people, some 350,000 living in Stone Town, the historic centre and densely-populated capital Zanzibar, will be affected by the rationing.

Under normal circumstances, Stone Town's population require about 50 million litres of water a day.

Apart from Tanzania, and Uganda, that are part of east Africa, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Friday warned that 11 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia were on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa.

Officials in mainland Tanzania said they would start rationing electricity in across the country next due to water shortage in power-generation dams, a move that would also affect Zanzibar that gets three-quarters of its electricity from the mainland.

Tanzania's energy and minerals permanent secretary Patrick Rutabanzibwa told AFP that electricity generation at the country's stations has dropped due to shortage of water.

Rationing will start "anytime from next week," he said.

Rutabanzibwa said Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) had asked for permission to draw additional water from Mtera dam, a major hydropower plant in central Tanzania, in a bid to avoid power rationing, but the request was unlikely to be approved.

"The proposal is not environmentally sound. It will affect the fish population in the dam, a factor that will harm fishermen economically," he told AFP.

Electricity has for the last five months been erratic in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam for various reasons including drought and breakdown of facilities. Many traders and industrialists were forced to resort to noisy and costly generators.

Tanzania's total generation capacity is 953 megawatts, more than two-thirds of which is hydroelectric.

President Jakaya Kikwete in his New Year message warned that at least 613,000 Tanzanians would need food aid, and maybe more if the poor rains continue.