Blue Nile flood crisis deepens in Sudan: five states hit

​Sudan has been hit by a flood wave following the Blue Nile’s torrents, with widespread effects recorded across five key states. The waters have engulfed homes, residential neighbourhoods and farmlands in the Blue Nile region, alongside the states of Sennar, Al Jazirah, Khartoum, River Nile and Northern State.
​In light of the Nile’s continuously rising water levels this week, the General Directorate of Nile Waters, operating under the Sudanese Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, issued a warning to citizens residing on the riverbanks, urging them to take necessary measures to protect lives and property.
​Regarding the flow rates, the Directorate noted a decrease in the Blue Nile’s daily revenue, which reached 699 million cubic metres. At the same time, the discharge from the Al-Roseires Dam was reduced to 613 million. In contrast, the Sennar Dam’s discharge stood at 688 million cubic metres per day, the Jebel Aulia Dam’s discharge exceeded 130 million, and the Khashm El Girba Dam’s discharge crossed the 120 million cubic metre threshold, with the Merowe Dam’s discharge reaching over 730 million.
​A number of monitoring stations, states, and rivers have entered the official flood level phase. The affected stations included Wad Al-Ays (Sennar), Khartoum, Madani, Shendi, Atbara, Berber, and Jebel Aulia. The states that have reached the flood stage are the Blue Nile, Sennar, Al Jazirah, Khartoum, River Nile, and White Nile. The affected river stretches included the Blue Nile (from Al-Deim to Khartoum), the White Nile (from Al-Jabalain to Khartoum), and the main Nile River (from Khartoum to Dongola).
​Engineer Abubakr Mustafa, a consultant in dams and infrastructure, attributed the floods to heavy rainfall resulting from climate change, stressing in an interview with Sudan’s Radio Dabanga that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) was not the cause. He explained that the heavy rains seen in the country since last year are a direct result of the El Niño phenomenon and rising ocean temperatures, which led to increased evaporation rates and a disturbance in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, causing it to shift northwards, reaching as far as Aswan in Egypt.
​He pointed out that this season’s rainfall surpassed 150mm per day in some areas, generating sweeping torrents that ravaged vast areas such as Kassala, Port Sudan, Dongola, Wadi Halfa, Atbara, Shendi, and extending to Khartoum and Omdurman. Furthermore, the Atbara River recorded unprecedented flows of 550 million cubic metres in August, more than double its typical rate.
​The engineer revealed an unexpected role played by the GERD in mitigating the crisis. The dam’s near-complete filling and subsequent closure in August, allowing only limited discharge through turbines, prevented the crisis from escalating during the peak of the Blue Nile flood. He stated that this closure saved Sudan from a potential catastrophe where combined flows could have exceeded 1 billion cubic metres daily, had the Atbara flood coincided with a full discharge from the GERD.
​The expert launched sharp criticism against the lack of effective coordination between Ethiopia and Sudan, and the reliance on outdated standards for dam management. He also attributed the exacerbated losses to the absence of proper urban planning and residential encroachments onto the river and torrent pathways. He highlighted Sudan’s failure to utilise globally available modern technologies such as satellites and radars, and its adherence to old protocols that assume the peak rainfall concludes in mid-September, despite evidence of heavy rainfall continuing until the end of the month.
​Engineer Abubakr Mustafa emphasised the urgent need to modernise the monitoring and early warning systems, establish accurate maps of torrent routes, and halt unplanned expansion near the Nile. He also called for activating regional cooperation among the three parties – Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt – for shared management of the Nile waters that serves the interests of the region’s peoples