Spain continues to dry up with 11pc less rain 03/10/2006 00:00

3 October 2006

MADRID — Rainfall was 11 percent less than the year before, according to statistics released on Tuesday.

The environment ministry said during the past year, reservoirs were only filled to 39 percent of their capacity.

This represented a fall of 0.4 percent compared with less than the year before.

The average total rainfall was 595mm  - or 11 percent less than the year before.

Ministry sources said it was the second consecutive year of drought.
 
Around the country, rainfall levels have been uneven.

In the Canary Islands, Navarre, La Rioja, Castilla y León, Aragón and the north of Valencia, above average level  rainfall levels were recorded.

But everywhere else, the rainfall fell below the national average.

The driest areas were Extremadura, to the west of Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha, the middle of Valencia and some parts of Murcia, Andalucía and Galicia, where rainfall levels only reached 25 percent of the national medium.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news