Itezhitezhi Dam, Zambia

The Itezhitezhi dam, located approximately 300 km north-west of Lusaka, has the aim of regulating the flows of the Kafue River in order to improve their use in the Kafue Gorge hydroelectric power station, located 400 km downstream, and consequently increase the production of electricity.

In the second half of 1975, the installation of the dam detector in the riverbed began, which was completed in November 1976. The design of the dam, which is of the cliff type with an impermeable core of clayey laterite, is influenced by the seismicity of the area, by the impossibility of reaching the granite rock that is too deep with the foundations, and therefore by the need to rest the core of the dam itself on clay schist (mudstone). In addition to the main dam which has a length of 1,500 m and a maximum height of 55 m, an auxiliary cliff dam was also built.

The Kafue River has flood flows exceeding 2,000 m³/sec; Therefore, the program first envisaged the construction of two large diversion tunnels, each with an excavation section of 190 m², respectively 500 m long and 550 m. This was followed by the construction of the upstream and downstream gates, the diversion of the river into the tunnels (July 1975) and the removal of the deposit material at the dam foundations.