Kirasa River
The Kirasa River is a river in Rumonge Province, Burundi.
Course
The Kirasa River flows in a generally westward direction through the extreme north of Rumonge Province to its mouth on Lake Tanganyika near Gitaza.Environment
The area around the Kirasa river is densely populated, with 276 inhabitants per square kilometer as of 2016.The climate in the area is temperate.
The average annual temperature is.
The warmest month is July, when the average temperature is, and the coldest is November, with.
Average annual rainfall is.
The rainiest month is December, with an average of of precipitation, and the driest is July, with of precipitation.
Events
In May 2021 torrential rains caused the bridge carrying the RN3 road over the Kirasa River to collapse.It linked the Kabezi Commune in Bujumbura Rural Province, with the Muhata Commune in Rumonge Province.
The bridge was damaged beyond repair, so a new one had to be built.
In the interim, passengers travelling between Bujumbura and Rumonge would have to disembark and cross the river on foot.
In April 2024 a landslide that ran down the Kirasa River destroyed 497 houses and more than of crop fields in Gabaniro village, Gitaza zone, Muhuta district in Rumonge Province.
It seriously damaged the Kirasa hydropower dam that provides electricity to the town of Mutamba in Muhuta District and destroyed the buildings that would hold Kirasa Energy's new hydropower station.
Hydroelectric project
Kirasa Energy signed a contract with the government of Burundi in October 2019 to develop and transfer two cascade hydroelectric power plants on the Kirasi River with a combined capacity of 16MW.The company asked for financing from the African Development Bank and the Trade Development Bank.
In December 2022 Kirasa Energy issued a notice of expression of interest for international consultant services to monitor and control the construction project.
There would be a dam on the river between the Rutovu and Higiro collines, and a dam on its left tributary the Ginge River in the Gihondo colline.
Both would feed a conduit leading to a 9.5MW hydroelectric power station below the junction of the Kirasa and Ginge.
Further down there would be a dam in the Nigera colline feeding a conduit leading to a 6.5MW hydroelectric power station near the mouth of the river.