President Jakaya Kikwete, recently expressed concern why the country is not marketing this wonder of nature as much as it deserves. “I once picked a handful of the sand from the dune and placed it in the car and surprisingly it continued to move even in there,” said the Head of State.
The ‘Shifting Sand,’ dune towering more than 10 metres high with a width measuring 100 metres, had covered a one kilometre distance by the time the country observed its 50th Anniversary of Independence on 9th of December, 2011.
This is the distance that the crescent shaped hill is believed to have covered since December 1961. Mr Adam Akyoo the Communications Manager at the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority admits that the mysterious ‘mountain that moves’ which should be ranked high as among the ‘wonders of the world’ is still little known attraction because it is only recently that the hill was placed under the NCAA.Experts at NCAA say the moving mountain has been changing shape and direction in every ten years that corresponds with the country’s independence milestones, according to Mr Asantael Melita the Principal Tourism Officer with Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority.
“It is almost wind propelled though this needs special research, because in 2001 when Tanzania marked its 40th anniversary of independence the mountain was heading towards a river and we got scared that the sand dune will dissolve in there, but then the mountain suddenly changed direction miraculously,” said Mr Melita.
Ten years earlier in 1991 the mountain’s shape seemed to have increased while again ten years before that in 1981 the feature split into two segments with a smaller hill heading to a different direction.
Mr Melita records that the years 1981, 1991 and 2001 in which the ‘moving mountain’ changed either shape or direction, were all special milestones in Tanzania’s independence.
“At the moment there is slight change in the mountain’s composure, it seems to have grown more compact exceeding its usual 10 meters’ height and the normal 100 meter width seems to have shrunk down to 50 meters wide,” said Melita adding that the NCAA will change the usual ‘shifting sands’ tag that was used by some people to describe the feature, and now call it ‘Moving Mountain!’
Experts say the dark-sand surfaced mountain could have been formed over 3,000 years ago from a massive eruption at ‘Oldonyo L’engai’ an active volcano and Tanzania’s third highest Mountain located on the leeward of Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCCA).
Records shows that a cone from ‘L’engai’ was shot off and landed at Osukunua an area within NCAA from where it started its slow movement in the South-West Direction for hundreds of years before changing its bearings to North-West in 2001.
Traveling south, the ‘mountain’ has covered both the Salei and Angata plains, went past Naibor Hills and is now within the Oldoinyo-Gol plains heading towards the so-called ‘Ngorongoro endless plains.’
The first beacon to record the mountain’s movement was placed in 1969 after which, other beacons followed in 1976, 1981,1985, 1990, 1995, 1998 and 2003 in that order, with the latest erected four years ago in December 2011.
Using the same pace of movement it had in the past 50 years, we will also erect another beacon to mark the spot where the mountain is expected to be on the 9th of December 2061 when Tanzania marks its 100th Anniversary of Independence.
/Daily News.
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