HEAVY RAIN WREAKS HAVOC

The Government on Friday approved a package of emergency measures,including a 300 million euro fund,aimed at alleviating the enormous damage caused across the country by last week´s heavy rains. Most of Madrid's road tunnels were flooded and the capital's train connections with the east of the country were cut off. The rains flooded several towns in central Spain and wiped out crops worth millions of euros. The Castilla-La Mancha vineyards, which play a major economic role in the region, were destroyed and wine growers said it would take at least two years to recover the vines. Alcazar de San Juan in Ciudad Real province was particularly badly hit. Located in the heart of La Mancha, the town's 30,000 inhabitants are more used to drought but in 24 hours last week it rained more than it normally does for a whole year. Some 240 litres per square metre of rain fell in just one hour, turning the streets into rivers with the water reaching the ceilings of the houses in the worst-hit areas. Over 100 people had to be evacuated from their homes. Further north, in Alava province in the Basque country, fog caused a multiple pile-up on the N-1 in San Millán, in which one man died and 19 were injured, four of them seriously. In the south, rain has damaged about 80% of the olive groves in Jaen province, while 25 centimetres of snow fell on the Sierra Nevada in Granada, trapping two busloads of senior citizens on an excursion to Monachil for several hours. The Cabinet approved emergency measures to alleviate damage caused in Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla-Leon, Andalucia, Murcia, Madrid and Extremadura.