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’Cause of rockslide on Mt Kilimanjaro unknown’
2006-02-18 09:10:43
By Guardian Reporter, Dodoma
The government has not established yet the cause of a rockslide that occurred on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro early January this year killing three tourists, the House was told yesterday.
The Minister in the Vice President’s Office (Environment), Prof Mark Mwandosya, however, said they suspected that it was either caused by the decrease of ice on the mountain caused by global warming or because of some geological pressure. Mt. Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano.
Mwandosya was answering a question from Lucy Owenya (Special Seats) who had wanted to know the cause of the slides. She also wanted to know whether Moshi people will get another source of water when all the ice on Mt Kilimanjaro melts.
Prof Mwandosya said a researcher from Bordeaux University in France, Jacques Blot, had reported that since 1912 to date, ice on Mt Kilimanjaro had decreased by 80 per cent.
He said a research done in 1999 and 2000 by Dr Lonnie Thompson from Ohio University, USA, in collaboration with the University of Dar es Salaam showed that the ice on Mt Kilimanjaro would not last for 15 years from 2000.
The minister said the findings showed the ice on Mt Kilimanjaro is decreasing not only in depth but also in width.
He said because the melting of ice on the mountain was caused by global warming, it was obvious that the temperature would affect the ecology of the mountain itself and the availability of rain.
The minister called on people in Kilimanjaro and elsewhere not to cut trees.
He also appealed to people to plant trees near Mt. Kilimanjaro and not to start fires on or near it.
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