The calm of the evening of November 19 in the village of Rrilë in Lezha was broken at 9:00 PM, when a local resident who was fishing noticed that the water level in the Spiten-Hidrovor canal was rising rapidly. His alarm revealed what the residents had long feared; the lagoon embankment had given way, creating a crack of about 40 meters at a distance of 1.9 kilometers from the Tales Hydropower Plant.
"I was fishing with a hook near the canal, near the Tales dam. Within a short time, I saw an increase in water flow in this canal and immediately notified the police. They, together with other local structures, found a crack in the lagoon embankment," said the fisherman.
Despite the midnight alert and intervention of the army and civil emergency forces, over 800 hectares of land were submerged on the morning of November 20, along with 5 homes. Around 100 other homes were also surrounded by water, while the water rushed towards the residential areas of the Shenkoll, Kolsh and Zejmen Administrative Units.
What appears to be a natural disaster actually turns out to be the result of a long institutional "ping-pong" and a failure of coordination between the Protected Areas Administration (PAA) and the Drainage Board.
The testimonies of residents and the official positions of the two institutions reveal that the flooding of hundreds of hectares of land and the surrounding of homes by salt water did not come from rainfall, but from the blockage of the channel connecting the lagoon to the sea. The situation had been warned since July of this year, but the institutions failed to take measures to open it in time.
Flood warning
The head of the AdZM Lezha, Luiza Marku, told BIRN in an email response that her office had discovered the problem in the summer. She explained that the natural estuary had been blocked by sediment, endangering the ecosystem and residents.
"This situation has been going on since July, when the Matkeqe gorge was not functional, and the water level in the lagoon had dropped significantly, which had direct consequences on water quality, the increase in algae, and a strong and unpleasant odor appeared in the lagoon, especially during the hot hours of the day," said Marku.
AdZM says that after noticing the problem, it addressed the Drainage Board with two official letters, as it itself lacked funds. The first on July 17, 2025 and the second urgently just a few weeks before the flood, on October 28, 2025, requesting an excavator to open the canal, as "the discharge waters of the Tales Hydropower Plant are temporarily flowing towards the Vaini lagoon", also warning of the risk of flooding.
The Drainage Board, on the other hand, rejected the initial intervention citing red tape. According to AdZM, in their July response, the Drainage Board said that “the movement of heavy machinery was only done with the approval of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.”
Even after the incident, the director of the Drainage Board, Nikolin Prendi, maintained that the area was not within their jurisdiction. “The Spiten-Hidrovor Canal is under our jurisdiction and it has not been long since we intervened in its cleaning. While the rest is a protected area and is not within our jurisdiction,” Prendi told BIRN.
When asked about the demands from AdZM, he maintained the same stance.
“It is true that they have sent us letters and we have had correspondence, but that part is administered by the protected areas and is not under our control,” he stressed. Prendi said that the Board's machinery was only put into motion as a result of the emergency.
The fact that the institutions were aware of the risk of flooding and no measures were taken has prompted the police to refer the case as a criminal offense. Lezha Police confirmed that, on November 23, 2025, the materials on the flood were referred to the Prosecutor's Office for evaluation. The investigations, according to the police, are focused on uncovering the cause that led to the rupture of the earth and sand embankment.
Residents suffer the consequences
The clash of competencies and the neglect of intervention due to bureaucracy has brought catastrophic damage to residents.
Ardian Mlika, a longtime resident of Vaini, says that bureaucracy also delayed the intervention, while accusing that the closure of the natural channel was done intentionally.
"I was at 6 am on November 20 near the natural channel that connects the sea with the lagoon. It was closed and only when the embankment burst did an excavator come, on an emergency basis, to open it," Mlika said.
According to him, an excavator had been in the area for a week because there were plans to open a canal elsewhere, but this did not materialize. “This is because the protected area has become private land and for narrow interests, the natural canal has been closed, bringing serious consequences,” Mlika added.
Damage to agriculture and livestock is also incalculable due to saltwater flooding.
“The water came immediately and the level reached up to 1 meter. The greatest damage is in agriculture and livestock. We have been surrounded by water for a week; my chickens have died, the food base for livestock has been destroyed and the crops are under water,” Gëzim Prenga from Barbulloja told BIRN.
"This did not come from rainfall, but only from the human factor, as it is seawater and swamp water that has flooded us," he added.
Residents fear that the consequences will be long-term.
"It's all salt water. In addition to the current damage, the land will not produce for a long time. The same thing happened in the 2002 floods, when it took us 10 years to recover," complains another resident of the area, recalling that the situation is similar to the 1960s, when "there was no hydropower."
Environmental expert Jak Gjini supports the version that human hands have accelerated the disaster through overexploitation and lack of investment.
"Kune-Vaini has been maximally overexploited in recent years, causing serious damage to the ecosystem. The waters inside the lagoon have swelled and where it found a weak point, it caused the embankment to crack. The lagoon has only been exploited and not invested in, and these are the consequences," said Gjini.
Luiza Marku also admitted that human intervention has played a role in the malfunctioning of the sea-lagoon communication channel.
“It is the result of a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors,” Marku said. But, she said, the constant accumulation of marine sediments at the entrance to the channel, caused by the cycles of high and low tides, played a role. /BIRN/
