By David Evans
Paris - France extended water rationing to more than half the country on Monday as the severe drought that has wreaked havoc in Spain and Portugal expanded its reach from Morocco to the French capital.
The French government expanded measures ranging from bans on car washing and filling swimming pools to curbs on crop irrigation to 50 of the country's 96 mainland departments.
Anyone breaking the law faces a €1 500 fine.
"The drought that France has witnessed since September has been reinforced by a heatwave at the end of June," said the environment ministry's drought bulletin, published on Monday.
"The drought is affecting a large part of the country."
Continues Below ↓
In the tourist resorts of southern Spain and Portugal, where drought is the worst since records began in the 1940s, emergency wells are being drilled to cope with the summer demand surge.
In Portugal, 39 towns with about 22 000 inhabitants were getting water from tanker trucks at the end of June as reservoirs dried up, the Water Institute said. Another 15 towns with 25 000 people were on reduced supplies.
The environmental damage is huge - fish are dying in dried-up rivers and in one Spanish region, 80 million trees could die.
As temperatures across France began to rise again on Monday, the ministry warned of a high risk of forest fires and possible disruptions to domestic drinking water supplies.
Almost 10 000 people were evacuated from campsites in the south of France last week after a forest fire destroyed 1 000 hectares of pine trees near the resort of Frejus.
The dry weather has helped fuel a sharp increase in the number of forest fires in Portugal, and almost 400 firefighters were battling 25 blazes on Monday around the northern industrial city of Porto alone, the National Civil Protection Service said.
But French Environment Minister Nelly Olin said improvements in national water distribution meant there would not be a repeat of 1976, when the country experienced widespread shortages.
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
