Residents urged to evacuate as Mpumalanga's Senteeko Dam faces imminent collapse

Fears of an imminent dam collapse in Mpumalanga are mounting following a warning by the Department of Water and Sanitation.

The department issued an urgent public alert warning about structural concerns at the Senteeko Dam last week. 

It urged residents downstream of the dam, located in the Die Kaap River catchment, to immediately evacuate.

An excavator was mobilised on Saturday to widen the emergency side channel spillway in a bid to lower the water level in the dam.

The Senteeko Dam, which is officially registered as 'My Own Dam' with the Department of Water and Sanitation’s dam safety office, is a 26 m-high medium-sized dam, with a storage capacity of 1.8 million m³. 

It is owned by the Shamile Communal Property Association and is used for irrigation purposes.

The department said the dam was at risk of failure due to the impact of recent heavy rains in the region. 

An emergency safety assessment conducted by the department’s dam safety office has confirmed that the dam’s spillway structure suffered severe and irreversible deterioration, including advanced erosion and undercutting, leading to structural instability.

It said failure of the dam might occur without further warning. 

The head of the dam safety unit in the department, Wally Ramokopa, is set to join a team of engineers at the dam on Monday for further assessments.