WATCH | Western Cape's largest dam overflows for the first time in six years

For the first time in nearly six years, the Western Cape's largest dam, Theewaterskloof, is overflowing.

This comes after the dam hit lows of 12.9% at the height of the province's drought in 2018. The dam has a capacity of more than 480m cubic metres, and covers a surface area of 5,059 hectares.

“Over the past five years we have been combating an enormous drought in the Western Cape. The City of Cape Town, home to more than 4m people, was staring a 'Day Zero' in the face at the start of 2018.

“At that stage, the Theewaterskloof Dam was 12.9% full, with the last 10% considered to be unusable. The turnaround has been magnificent,” said Western Cape environmental affairs MEC, Anton Bredell.

Between 2015 and 2018, Cape Town, on the brink of Day Zero, suffered one of the longest and most severe droughts in recent times. Rainfall declined from an annual average of about 493mm in 1993 to about 149mm in 2017.

Since then the average level for dams in the Western Cape has increased to 79.2%, compared to 66.1% in 2019.

“The City of Cape Town, as well as our other municipalities, did incredible work to ensure there was always drinking water. This came at huge cost but ensured a greater water resilience moving forward.

“We are very proud as a province to note that not a single town ran out of drinking water during this devastating drought,” said Bredell.

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