JEDDAH: Residents of the districts of Al-Ajwad, Al-Manar, Al-Samir, Al-Rabee' and Al-Tawfeeq, all in the vicinity of the Al-Samir Dam 3, have said that authorities proposing solutions to problems at the structure are “making them up as they go along”. Local inhabitants are concerned at the safety of the dam, and say that a massive build-up of water is putting pressure on the dam and that the lower part of the structure is weakening. “How long is this situation going to continue?” asked Ali Al-Shareef, who lives near the dam. “We are all scared of might happen.” He said that people in the area are preparing to leave, and that the facts of the situation should be looked into by “someone capable of doing it properly”. “The desperate attempts of the Jeddah mayoralty are no solution, and only serve to stall the threat,” he said. Muhammad Al-Zahrani, pointing to the lower part of the dam from where water can be seen to be leaking, is no less pessimistic. “The threat is coming, and it threatens the lives of everyone living to the east of the highway,” he said. “We don't want spur-of-the-moment solutions. The problem is not with Al-Tawfeeq Dam. The danger posed by the precautionary dam in Wadi Al-'Aslaa' is worse should it collapse, as the water held back by Al-Tawfeeq Dam is just part of the leaks coming out of Al-'Aslaa' Dam. We need all the skills and expertise in dam disasters to find a means of freeing Jeddah from the threat of those two dams.” Ali Al-Hamdan has put his house in Al-Tawfeeq up for sale, and says the local inhabitants are caught between a “rock and a hard place”. “I saved up all my life to buy my house, but it's better to leave and be safe than stay. We're caught between a hammer of random solutions and an anvil of leaks. We don't need anyone to confirm the state of the dam. We can clearly see the cracks in the main structure on the east side, which show it was poorly built, and the leaks on the west side can prove dangerous for residential districts. A catastrophe is on the horizon, and something needs to be done.” He added that reassurances from the mayoralty concerning the sturdiness of the dam are unconvincing. “We can see that the opposite of what they say is true. How long can we wait? Where will all their statements get us?” Muhammad Al-Shareef agreed that “talk and reassurances are not what is needed”. “We want to see organized work and clear effort on the actual ground to protect us from the disaster we're all expecting,” he said. “Everyone's scared and the atmosphere among the people living here is not good.” Member of the municipal council Bassam Akhdhar says that channeling out water from the precautionary dam would only make the groundwater situation worse in nearby districts. “The mayoralty needs to quickly stop pumping water from the precautionary dam,” he said. “They should use pipes of only the highest quality, pipes that don't leak and can support the quantities of water that are being removed.” According to Akhdhar, the ideal solution to the problem of the water behind the two dams is to extend the precautionary dam to the northern flood course. “That would reduce the problem of surface water, as long as they are extended beneath the ground to ease the process of transportation without side leaks,” he said. In response to the situation, the Civil Defense has formed an urgent committee to assess the state of the dam. Regional chief Abdullah Al-Jiddawi said the committee comprised the Jeddah deputy mayor and the construction firm responsible for building the dam, and that it was investigating the leaks which have sparked the anger of local inhabitants. “The leaks will be addressed with the company that built the dam,” Al-Jiddawi said. “The company has said that there is no cause for alarm and that the dam is under no threat of collapse.” The spokesman for the Civil Defense reiterated that the situation is no cause for concern. “Pumping equipment is working around-the-clock to remove water and channel it into the rain course,” said Muhammad Al-Qarni. “10,000 cubic meters of water are being pumped out every hour by each motor.” A recently published technical report revealed that the Al-Tawfeeq Dam was poorly constructed and did not meet engineering standards. The report said that the dam posed a threat to nearby districts should there be any form of breach to the structure, and described its construction as “fragile”. It said that no cover or form of prevention was in place against leaks from the dam's base and that no surface protection layer was in place for the main body of the dam. It stressed the need to keep the precautionary dam empty so that it can take on flood waters, and for the introduction of measures to continually empty the dam. The report also said that the earthen back-up dam in front of the Misk Lake required support with sheet layers tacked into the rock layer. The document also recommended building a box channel or suitable piping to connect the dam gate and the northern flood channel and convey water by gravity, dispensing with the need for pumps, to empty the dam within 18 days. For local resident Ali Al-Shehri, the only solution is a direct drainage channel. “The water that is removed one day is back by the day after,” he said. “That only increases people's concerns, and it is a waste of the effort put in by the authorities to remove water and repair what has been damaged by floods.” In the face of conflicting reports, some residents are getting ready for the worst. “Our neighbors have bought a dinghy, just in case,” said Shawqi Al
