The settling Lake Kariba

by Anthony Davie
(Cranbourne Australia)

Having moved up to Kariba in 1959 with my parents, we were privileged to experience the comradeship between all those involved in the creation of such a beautiful dam/lake along with it the amazing wild life that surrounded it.

Being a 9 year old I went to Kariba Junior school and on numerous occasions we had to evacuate our classrooms due to earth tremors, on more than once the tremors were so severe that they broke windows in the class rooms. The tremors were in fact earth quakes taking place due to the dam filling with water and the weight of this water pressuring the tectonic plates, caverns and underground voids. This as far as I can remember lasted a year or two.