Iraq: Agriculture lands drown following two dams collapse in Basra

Some 40,000 dunums planted with wheat and barley crops have been drowned following the sinking of two small dams in the south of Iraq, an Iraqi official announced yesterday.

“Abu Al-Fulin and Al-Ja’af dams located over the Hawr Al-Hawizeh lake collapsed on Tuesday as a result of the rain floods that had been falling over Iraq’s southern province of Basra,” the head of the Agricultural Union in Basra’s northern district of Qurna, Hadi Al-Maliki, told the local media.

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The dams’ collapse, Al-Maliki explained, had led to the flooding of the Hawr Al-Hawizeh Lake’s water over 40,000 agricultural acres in Qurna’s Al-Ruta area.

The Iraqi official did not provide details about any human casualties.

In 2010, the Iraqi government launched a national project, led by the country’s agriculture ministry, to develop the wheat cultivation industry. The project was said to be depending on the production of salt and drought resistant seeds with high productivity and disease resistance.