Rusape Dam is an in-land man-made water body in the outskirts of
Rusape
Rusape is a town in eastern Zimbabwe.
Location
It is located in Makoni District in Manicaland Province, in northeastern Zimbabwe. It lies approximately , by road, southeast of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Rusape is situated on the main roa ...
adjacent to
Tsanzaguru,
Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
, specifically built as a reservoir lake for irrigation in the usually dry southeastern part of Zimbabwe and water supply for the town of Rusape. It is usually 100% full due to its feeder river,
the Rusape, originating from ever-green
Eastern Highlands
:''"Eastern Highlands" also refers to Eastern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea, and part of the Great Dividing Range, Australia.''
The Eastern Highlands, also known as the Manica Highlands, is a mountain range on the border of Zimbabwe ...
.
There have been suggestions that the dam has increased the incidence of flooding downstream.
A local legend has grown up that a
mermaid
In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
Mermaids are ...
"takes" a human sacrifice every year in the vicinity of the dam.
Bulawayo 24 News, 30 May 2014
Accessed 5 June 2015
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rusape
Infrastructure in Zimbabwe