FLOODING AROUND ARCADES SHOPPING MALL
By Shalala Oliver Sepiso
On Thursday 2nd February 2023, Lusaka residents woke up to shock flash-floods that left about 40% of Arcades Shopping Mall under water including carparks of Protea Mulungushi and Protea Lusaka. All underlying areas around Arcades were inaundated with storm water.
The rains that Lusaka experienced from Wednesday 1st february 2023 and Thursday 2nd February 2023 were unbelievable!
The rains were partly caused by the after-effects of severe tropical Cyclone Cheneso, which made landfall and smashed into northeastern Madagascar and parts of Mozambique, bringing strong winds and triggering downpours that caused extensive flooding. More than 20 people died and tens of thousands were left homeless. In Lusaka, the rains lasted for more than a week.
In fact, on 22nd January 2023, the Zambia Red Cross Society activated its Early Action Protocol (EAP) for Floods after receiving a forecast that floods were likely to hit 10 districts across the country, potentially affecting more than 100,000 people.
The impact-based forecast, issued by the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS), predicted a flood with 20 years return period.
This means the particular magnitude of the flood that was going to be experienced at the end of January 2023 was not likely to seen again again until January 2043.
The floods were predicted to hit on 28 January. Further, a recent report by the Zambia Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) projected that 78 districts in all the 10 provinces in Zambia were at a high risk of flooding even as the rains continue to fall, and rivers burst their banks.
On 2nd February 2023, with the Intertropical Convergence Zone situated around Central Zambia including Lusaka, the Zambia Meteorological Department issued an alert stating that flash floods were anticipated in Lusaka and many other areas of Zambia due to continous rainfall coupled with heavy falls and already saturated soil moisture.
Later that day, it was reported that 22 districts across Zambia were underwater due to climate change-induced flooding caused by the above-average rains.
Despite the rains being above-average, the flooding around the Arcades Mall area was as a direct result of the new fly-over bridge that was built on Great East Road by the PF government towards the 2021 elections.
We haven’t seen this kind of flooding at Arcades and road cut-off in over 30 years. The Great East Road and Arcades Flyover Bridge project has been a total disaster.
To think that $289m was spent on this project and little has improved is disappointing.
The works were shoddy, and the impact in terms of traffic flow being smoother is little. It has ended up blocking access to the University Zambia and almost killed business at Arcades Mall by not giving it a proper access to the thoroughfare.And now we have to contend with this mess of flooding.
In terms of drainage, the new road and the bridge have made things worse. Based on the gradients around the area – and the history of the flow of water on the surface and also underground, the Arcades Flyover was badly designed.
The contractor did not incorporate adequate drainage in the design.
The drain is too small to quickly allow water through. With all the new buildings in the Show Grounds and Arcades area, drains are struggling even in a normal rainy season.
This is worse with storms like the one at the beginning of this month. Because of these new developments, most new drainages have been constructed in the wrong direction or in a way to overwhelm some watersheds instead of sharing the water.
From around Kalingalinga, Mass Media, Long Acres and Rhodespark, these drain push water towards East Park Mall and Arcades.
In fact people living in kalingalinga and Mass Media area pump water from their yards and this water is dumped into drains that flow towards Arcades area.
One other reason for this flooding is that now we have more efficient drainages upstream of Arcades due to the paving of new roads like Kamloops, Kelvin Siwale and Nangwenya.
So water is running fast towards Great East Road within minutes of the rain when it would takes hours or days before. In the end, this water that comes from Kalingalinga, Mass Media area and Show Grounds, flows towards Arcades area is failing to cross the Great East Road towards Olympia Townships; and eventually to Mazyopa where it joins the Bombay Drainage, which feeds the Ngwerere River.
The sheer volume of the water coming down is forcing itself against the bridge.
This has essentially made the bridge to become a dam wall. The culverts are not be big enough to allow it all under the bridge. With nowhere to go, the water causes flooding.
After heavy rains, the Arcades flyover now looks like a water feature and some people have jokingly said CEEC money could be gotten to have fish farming on the road during floods.
Proprieters of Arcades Shopping Mall, East Park Mall and Acacia Park all cautioned the Ministry of Local Government, engineers for the Lusaka Decongestion Project and indeed the Lusaka City Council.
They hired independent engineers to assess the site and propose appropriate designs. They lobbied for better drainage and when they failed to convince the leaders, they took legal action.
Still they failed. Graduare Property Development Limited, the owner and operator of East Park Mall, sought leave of the Lusaka High Court to apply for judicial review against the refusal or omission by ZEMA to enforce the compliance order it purportedly issued to the Ministry of Local Government in relation to the Lusaka Decongestion Project (LDP), which was co-financed by GRZ (15%) and Exxim Bank of India (85%) and was to be a 36 months undertaking.
They were time-barred by the courts – and in the end the road and bridge were done as they are today.
The design ended up not being an engineering problem but a political problem which required a political solution.
The drawings; engineering and otherwise were prepared and approved here in Zambia. Of course engineers are not blameless. Consulting engineers must have paid for oversight. It will be good to hear whether the engineers who signed off this project can be held fully responsible or they will blame “political influence”.
But essentially, the Arcades problem is a mess caused by politics more than engineering failure.
Authorities ignored the basic environmental requirements for water to drain.
And when populism, haste, lawlessness, politics, expediency and departure from standards becomes the norm, such catastrophes are bound to happen.
Remember also that the drainages on this project were given to PF cadres to do. These inexperienced local contractors, some of him have since been arrested for the same, did not do an adequate job.
As a country, we need to stop accepting mediocrity and start requesting meritocracy!
What is important to note is that the problem can be corrected. There is now need to make remedial action.
All that is needed is some money and some engineers to implement a correct design.
Nothing we can be done to avert these floods other than finding a way for the water to go around the structure (the flyover bridge), or through it or moving the floods into another drainage system or watershed. We may have to drill through those poorly constructed mishelemuko (so called flyover bridges) and insert culverts.
At the same time, there is need to create sumps and settling ponds at both EastPark and Arcades Malls as a long term solution.
The question and problem is at whose cost? This is why government officials should listen more to stakeholders.
A little more listening by the PF government would have helped.
The country stands to benefit more by respecting relevant laws, by having a regard for appropriate jurisdictions of institutions, while observing relevant standards. Instead the PF was in a hurry to impress.
The project, which should have ended in September 2021 was forced to finish in December 2020.
And in the end, a lot of cuts had to be cut and wrongs were committed. The design of the bridge at Arcades is one such mistake.
The UPND now needs to engage residents and business owners around the area to see what the best way forward is.
