MADRID - Another week of heavy rain has swollen Spain's water reserves, data showed on Wednesday, and the meteorological office said the danger of a second year of severe drought has receded.
Water reserves in Spain's lakes and rivers are now at 53.8 percent of capacity, up from 52.5 percent a week ago.
They dropped as far as 39 percent in early October last year, which was the lowest level since 1995.
The amount of water held is now 28,661 cubic hectometres, still 19 percent below the average for the same date in the last 10 years.
Antonio Mestre of the National Meteorological Institute said winter rains had been plentiful enough to diminish the risk of a second consecutive year of severe drought.
"Broadly speaking, it's rained about twice as much as last year," he was quoted as saying in the daily newspaper ABC on Wednesday.
In Portugal, Environment Minister Francisco Nunes Correia said winter rains had lessened fears of drought. Portugal's wheat crop was wiped out last year during the worst drought since 1931.
"We believe that in 2006 there is no reason to consider that there's a drought," he told private TSF radio. "Right now things are turning out rather well."
The Portuguese National Statistics Institute reported on Tuesday that autumn and winter planting was complete and that crops were developing well.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
