PROGRESS IN IRAQ

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21922, 17 January 1946, Page 6

PROGRESS IN IRAQ

LARGE PUBLIC WORKS BRITISH FIRMS CO-OPERATE Iraq is showing confidence in her future by going ahead with important development works. In these works British firms are now, as in the past, co-operating to the fullest extent, reports the London Times in Bagdad. The Ilabbamyah escape scheme, on the River Euphrates, is to be resumed immediately and completed fit is expected) within lour years. In 1939 the Iraq Government sanctioned project to provide a regulated draw-off of the dangerous excess of the Euphrates flood water at a point near Ramadi, passing the water so drawn oft into the Habbaniyah Lake; with another controlled channel from Mujarah at the southern edge of the lake, to pour the surplus water into the Abu Dibbis depression north-west of Karbala. Competitive tenders having been obtained, a contract for the work was awarded to Messrs. Balfour Beatty and Company, Limited, London, but in 1941 wartime difficulties compelled the suspension of work, although by this time the Mujarah escape regulator and channel had been completed and the excavation of the Ramadi inlet channel had been partly done. With the ending of the war tfih Iraq Government arranged for the resumption of work by Balfour Beatty, but with an important addition a controlled outlet channel near Dliibban which will permit part of the water poured into the Habbaniyah Lake, otherwise wasted, to bo returned to the Euphrates during the low-water season, and thus make possible trio improvement and extension of cultivation on the lower Euphrates and m canalised areas connected with that river. , . , . The total cost of the scheme, including £500,000 already spent, is estimated at about £2.000,000. It has just been announced m Bagdad that a new railway. bridge is w be built across the Tigris, within the city boundary, to take the place of the existing waggon ferry which now copes very inadequately with tnrougn railway traffic from the port of Basra to northern Iraq. For this undertaking the tender of Holloway Bros. (London), Limited, amounting to £1,070,000. was accepted. Both the bridge and the Habbaniyah scheme were designed by the Iraq Government's consulting engineers m London. Messrs. Coode, Wilson. Vaughan Lee and Gwyther, who will supervise the construction