More than half of Venezuela's banana-growing region of Chivo is under water after floods in the country's north-west, website Laverdad.com reported.

The story reported 25,000 hectares of Chivo's 45,000 hectares were flooded, while 5,000 hectares were under water in Caño Caimán tributary area Encontradas.

Farmer Maite Canovas told the website plantations of banana, cassava and corn were the most affected, while criticizing the government for its incompetence in the region's reconstruction works.

"It gives pain to see dredgers paralyzed, and the machinery they haven't been able to buy due to a lack of barges to move them," she was quoted as saying.

"If the national Government had solved this key problem for the people, instead of giving fridges and stoves as gifts, they would have been able to live in shelter again. We need to begin work so that no more rivers overflow."

Photo: Globovision

www.freshfruitportal.com