By Ho Binh Minh and edited by Alan Raybould for Reuters
HANOI Aug 4 (Reuters) - Seasonal flooding on the Mekong river that usually begins in early August has not yet started in Vietnam’s southern delta rice basket, raising questions over the country’s biggest rice crop of the year.
The floods, which generally peak in the Mekong Delta in late October, are forecast to be late and low this year, the National Centre for Hydro and Meteorology Forecasts said in a report published on Wednesday.
Water levels in the Delta’s gauging stations in Tan Chau and Chau Doc were 0.5 metre (1.64 feet) below the average of the past few years, said the report, carried in the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece daily newspaper, Nhan Dan (People).
The Mekong Delta produces more than half of Vietnam’s rice output and accounts for 90 percent of rice exports from the world’s second-largest rice-exporting country after Thailand.
The winter-spring crop is the top yielding crop of Vietnam’s three annual harvests, and most of its grain is exported.
“The waters are much lower than in the past, because hydro power plants upstream have closed dams for accumulating water,” said Vo Thanh, head of the weather bureau in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang, a key rice area.
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