Bulawayo- In a case of get ready, get set, flush, home owners in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe have been asked to flush their toilets at a specific time.

The two main dams, supplying water to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, have been drying up due to severe droughts in the southwestern part of the country. This has raised fears of worsening water shortages before the rainy season starts in November.

Severe water rationing in the city has caused sewage systems to block.

Now the Bulawayo City Council is asking its 1.5 million residents to flush their toilets simultaneously, at precisely 7:30 pm, to unblock the sewers.

Officials say that ‘‘synchronized flushing’’ is necessary to clear waste that would have accumulated in sanitary facilities, after days of water outages.

Officials claim that the hope is that if everyone flushes together, there is less chance of sewer blockages and pipe bursts.

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.”

The idea of synchronized flushing was first introduced to Bulawayo around 20 years ago, at the height of a severe drought. On top of the water shortages, old water pipes have not been replaced in years. Power and water outages are a common phenomenon in Zimbabwe after years of political turmoil and economic meltdown, under President Robert Mugabe's government.

On Saturday, however, residents told AP that they weren't "aware" of the new system the city council was proposing. They said the whole issue wasn't properly communicated to them.