Five Kobs that came with floating island now stranded at Karuma dam (Video)
Five Kobs that traveled with the sudd islands from Kirinya in Nalubaale lake have been spotted stranded at Karuma Hydropower Project.
The Kobs are said to have broken away from the island and floated towards Karuma where they were caught up in the trash racks.
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“We are working with Uganda Wild Life Authority (UWA) to rescue the Kobs,” an official from Eskom told Nile Post.
According to the official, the Kobs are out of danger since the trash racks were able to trap them so they do not cross into the turbines.
“The point at which water enters to go to the turbines is called intake. Now to prevent things like debris, dead bodies, animals and the likes from entering the turbines, they install trash racks that trap all those items. So the trash racks trapped those Kobs otherwise they were going to end up in the turbines and be crashed.”
The Sudd islands previously located at Kirinya side of the lake broke into two early last week causing a nationwide power blackout.
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The first is the one that blocked Nalubale bridge. The larger part also moved out enroute the dam on Friday night but got anchored opposite the Jinja pier.
A lot of concerted efforts were put together under the leadership of the Executive Director NEMA. National fisheries research Institute provided the boat n personnel, UNRA brought in a ferry, local business people and fishermen also brought in their boats, the labor force was sourced from within persons from Nakasongola with experience in sudd anchoring including officials from the ministry of water, ministry of energy and Eskom.
That combined effort enabled us to push out the sudd from its risk location to the bay near the pier. The plant mass will be lifted from there by MAAIF and the ministry of works.
Yesterday President Museveni inspected the ongoing works to clear the floating island and commended the teams led by the UPDF Engineering Brigade engineer involved in removing the floating island but also stopping another one that is a few kilometres from the dam.
