SPOT 5 observes flooding of Gharb plain in Morocco after Oued Beth bursts its banks

Heavy rain and snow in northern Morocco has led to flooding along 50 km of the course of the Oued Beth, leaving 80,000 hectares of croplands under water in the Gharb plain 70 km north of Rabat.

The SPOT 5 satellite, called into action by the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, supplied an image of the disaster area 5 days after the floods began. Comparison with a SPOT 5 image of 9 January 2009 revealed the extent of the floods in this farming region.
 

Heavy rain and snow in northern Morocco has led to flooding along 50 km of the course of the Oued Beth, leaving 80,000 hectares of croplands under water in the Gharb plain 70 km north of Rabat.

The SPOT 5 satellite, called into action by the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, supplied an image of the disaster area 5 days after the floods began. Comparison with a SPOT 5 image of 9 January 2009 revealed the extent of the floods in this farming region.
 

Freak weather, long droughts and cold snaps are all manifestations of the climate phenomena that are hitting the countries of the Maghreb increasingly hard. Such shifting climate patterns were underlined in the latest assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).