Construction company Conduril has finished building the largest dam in Cabo Verde (Cape Verde), which will also have the largest reservoir in the archipelago, said Pedro Ribeiro, Director of Production of the branch of the Portuguese company in Cabo Verde.

The Figueira Gorda dam, in the Santa Cruz area of Santiago Island is the largest water project in Cabo Verde, with a capacity to store about 1.5 million cubic meters of rainwater.

Ribeiro told Portuguese news agency Lusa the dam is 32 metres high and has a gallery for technical monitoring and a spillway surface.

The Figueira Gorda dam, whose construction began in February 2012 and cost 407 million escudos (3.7 million euros), is located in a mountain gorge near Pedra Badejo (in the central eastern area of the island), the geology of which presented the project with a number of difficulties, Ribeiro noted.

Besides the Poilão and Figueira Gorda dams, the island of Santiago has another three dams: Salineiro (Ribeira Grande), Sachet (Santa Catarina) and Faveta (São Salvador do Mundo), and the Principal and Falmengos dam have yet to be completed. (macauhub/CV)