More than half of the grain crops have been flattened in the Vitebsk region due to rains

July 28, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. More than half of the grain crops have lodged in the fields of the Vitebsk region as a result of the inclement weather that has raged for several days, Aleksey Turkov, head of the department of agriculture, crop production and fodder production of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee's Agriculture and Food Committee, told a BELTA correspondent. Other crops were also affected by the downpours: lodging of flax is 70%, and cruciferous crops are 40%. However, Vitebsk agrarians are no strangers to the vagaries of the weather. According to the source, only in the last few years has the weather been favorable to the rural workers during the harvest period, and mostly they had to harvest grain in similar difficult conditions. "The situation is familiar, so we will use combines with stalk lifters on the affected field sections, and use every favorable hour to avoid losing the grown crop," emphasized Aleksey Turkov. The bad weather that has set in over the past few days in the Vitebsk region has been accompanied by heavy rains. In the past 24 hours alone, the region has received almost a ten-day norm of precipitation, according to the Vitebsk Regional Center for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring. At the same time, the maximum amount of precipitation (115% of the ten-day norm) fell on the urban settlement of Yezershchye, which was closest to the center of the raging cyclone. According to the Vitebsk Regional Emergency Situations Department, the downpours resulted in power outages in 25 settlements in the region. Tolochinsky, Orshansky, Vitebsky, Polotsky, and Senno districts were affected. However, by 10:00 PM on July 27, all damages were rectified. In the coming days, according to weather forecasters, warm weather will return to the region again, and only on Wednesday-Thursday short-term rains are expected in some areas. -0-