Record floods pummel US Midwest region

Record floods have pummelled the US Midwest region with ice chunks the size of small cars ripping through barns and farmhouses and also turning farm fields into lakes, the media reported.

The Midwest comprises the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Record-high river levels were reported in at least 38 locations in the Midwest, particularly in Nebraska and Iowa

The floods were inflicting a devastating toll on farmers and ranchers at a moment when they can least afford it, raising fears that this natural disaster will become a breaking point for farms weighed down by falling incomes and rising bankruptcies, The New York Times reported.

Farms filing for bankruptcy protection rose by 19 per cent last year across the Midwest, the highest level in a decade, according to data compiled by the American Farm Bureau. Many of those farmers have lost their livestock and livelihood due to these floods.

The rail lines and roads that carry crops to market were washed away by the rain-gorged rivers that drowned small towns, forced thousands of evacuations and killed at least three people.

Some farmers say they have been cut off from their animals behind walls of water, while others cannot get to town for food and supplies for their livestock.

As floodwaters slowly ebbed in some places on Monday, other cities, including Fargo, North Dakota, were getting sandbags ready and bracing for floods from rivers overflowing with snowmelt and late-winter rains.

Before the floods, extreme cold in the region due to a "polar vortex" killed at least 29 people in February.

--IANS

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