Isaccea - It Took 18 Hours to Repair the Dam

The dam that broke two days go in Isaccea, in the Tulcea County, has been repaired yesterday morning, after 18 hours of hard and intense work, according to the local authorities. In the meantime, the authorities and the people in the localities on the left side of the river between Bazias and Calafat were calmly waiting for the Danube to reach the record flow of 14,000 cubic meters per second. To their surprise, the record has been broken in the evening, when it reached 14,100 cubic meters per second.

Even though, initially, the Tulcea prefect, Chirica Lefter, had told President Traian Basescu the fact that the breach in the dam in Isaccea would be covered on Monday night by 10:00 p.m., the works took a lot more because the breach was getting moment by the minute. They brought illuminators and the number of the trucks that transported rocks at the place of the damage has been increased. In addition, some weirs have been brought from Constanta and used to cover the breach. They have also prepared a barge to bring rocks on the Danube in case it didn’t work. However, everything worked as planned and, after 18 hours of fighting with the water, the breach has been "filled". The works for the complete repair of the dam will take place after the flow of the waters in the area will decrease, as the Tulcea prefect, Chirica Lefter, estimates.

THE RODENTS’ TUNNELS

As Jurnalul National announced yesterday, the official explanations that came from the authorities regarding the breakdown of the dam in the place seen as the safest are very simple: the dam was perforated by the rodents’ tunnels. This means that all the dirt dams in the Tulcea County, which haven’t been maintained very well or consolidated in years, could break in any moment, which would lead to serious damages.

The damages caused by this incident are minor. The floods reached a few gardens and the Isaccea stock pond. President Basescu arrived with a helicopter on Monday night, but did not meet the locals. The authorities estimate that, without any motor pumps to take the water out of the people’s gardens, they will have them flooded by summer at least.

UNCERTAINTY

The Danube Delta has been underwater for a few weeks. The people don’t know what to think anymore. The waters came across the dams and threaten more localities, on the Chilia branch (Plauru and Pardina) as well as on Sulina (Ilganii de Sus, Vulturu). The dam at Mahmudia has been enforced and raised a little more, and the authorities are hoping that the announced floods will not affect them at all. Some of the villagers have cautiously placed sand bags at their gates and say they will not leave their homes in case of floods. The authorities in Tulcea say that there are some localities that will not have to suffer that much from the floods because they have dams built of concrete. These localities are Partizani, Gorgova, Crisan and Maliuc. The only problems that might appear in these areas are in the places with unauthorized constructions on the dams.

RESTRICTIONS

The ships’ traffic is restricted everywhere, the maximum allowed speed for the bigger ones being 5 km/hour. The Tulcea Captaincy is under permanent alert. The authorities analyze the situation, and they might stop the big ships from going on the Sulina branch.

Translated by Sorin Balan