No rush to flush: Synchronized toilet flush time set for millions of Zimbabweans

City authorities in Zimbabwe’s second largest city of Bulawayo, are appealing to home owners to flush their toilets at a specific time, in order to unblock sewers after days of severe water rationing. The ‘big flush’ time has been set for 7:30 pm.

The Bulawayo City Council has asked its 1.5 million residents to flush their toilets simultaneously when water supplies are restored. City officials say ‘‘synchronized flushing’’ is needed to clear waste that would have accumulated in sanitary facilities – which will have been affected by days of water outages.The hope is that if everyone flushes together there is less chance of sewer blockages and pipe bursts, officials claimed.Simela Dube, the city’s director of engineering, said: “We need to flush our toilets at the same time to push all the waste that will be just under the surface, as residents would be using little water to flush toilets during water shedding hours.”Bulawayo’s two main dams, supplying water to the city, have been drying up due to severe droughts in the southwestern part of Zimbabwe.