Spanish Farmers Assess Damage From Ebro Flooding
Date: 10-Apr-07
Country: SPAIN
The Ebro burst its banks upriver from the city of Zaragoza 10 days ago -- something that happens periodically -- after days of heavy rain.
Since then the rain has continued and, although the river is no longer overflowing, the ground is now too waterlogged to absorb the flood, a spokeswoman for the union COAG said.
"It's a bit premature, but the figure we are giving for farmland affected is 18,000 hectares (45,000 acres), which compares with 25,000 last time this happened in February 2003," she said.
"The area is mainly alfalfa, grain and fruit and vegetables."
This time the damage to crops will be greater than in 2003 because plants are at a more advanced stage and may be underwater for longer.
Broad beans were ready for picking and are likely to be a write-off, while other crops will rot if they are underwater for another 10 days, she added.
Towns in the area were not badly affected. In some cases people broke dikes protecting fields in order to spare towns from flooding, newspaper El Mundo said.
Moderate rain is forecast in parts of the country this week, but there were no warnings of heavy storms in the central areas that feed the Ebro, which runs across central Spain to reach the Mediterranean near Tarragona, south of Barcelona.
