Our water supply in Walvis Bay comes from pipes sunk through the usually-dry Kuiseb riverbed. The now-flowing water has washed away the pipes. The water shortage shall remain until the river recedes and the underground water can again be accessed. The only reason there is a town here at all, in the middle of the desert, is the natural harbour which is now a thriving port.
We are deeply reminded of Jesus' promise that “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4.14)
Flooding is very severe in the North. Windhoek, too, has had rain almost ceaselessly this year, with it forecast to continue into April.
An extract from a recent newspaper article:
Wet January Rewrites Windhoek Rain Records
Werner Menges - 17 February 2011
THE exceptionally wet weather during January has set a new rainfall record in Windhoek, the Meteorological Service of Namibia reported this week.
Rainfall figures gathered from weather stations across Namibia show that during January most of the country - from Katima Mulilo in the north-east to Ondangwa in the north, Khorixas in the north-west, the eastern parts of Namibia, and also the south - experienced a substantially wetter than normal first month of the year.
The 320,9 mm of rain recorded at the Windhoek Met Office during last month is the highest monthly rainfall total measured at that weather station since its inception in 1893. In an average January the Windhoek Met Office's rainfall total is 85,6 mm.
Between October last year and the end of January, 473,8 mm of rain was measured at the Windhoek Met Office. This is already well above the average total of 355 mm that is recorded at the station in an entire rainy season from October to the end of April.
