By Denis Balibouse and Cecile Mantovani<\/p>\n
LES BRENETS, Switzerland, July 30 (Reuters) – Lake Brenets, a long, winding lake on the Swiss-French border, is all but drained \u200cand has been unnavigable for more than a week amid a prolonged drought \u200cthat has hit waterways across Europe.<\/p>\n
The lake is normally thronged with campers, swimmers and canoeists in the summer, \u200bwhile three boat companies typically ferry thousands of tourists across it each season.<\/p>\n
But this year it is virtually deserted as water levels in the River Doubs, which feeds it, have fallen sharply following months of scant rainfall and three successive heatwaves, the latest of which \u200cis still under way.<\/p>\n
Dozens of \u2060boats are stranded high and dry on the cracked mud, including “Jumbo”, a tourist vessel operated by Yvan Durig, owner of the Societe de \u2060Navigation des Brenets.<\/p>\n
“It’s hitting us hard because we’re powerless in the face of this phenomenon,” he told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Already, he has had to lay off his team and is concerned about making \u200ba loss \u200bfor the year, with water levels now more \u200bthan 9 metres (30 feet) below average \u200cand falling by around 22 centimetres (9 inches) a day.<\/p>\n
With rainfall about half of the usual levels since April, the MeteoSuisse weather agency says this year’s drought is comparable to some of the country’s worst in 1976, 2003 and 2018. Its long-term forecasts suggest below-normal rainfall will continue until mid-August.<\/p>\n
While the lake has experienced droughts in the past that \u200chave hit business, Durig said that their frequency has \u200bincreased.<\/p>\n
“These droughts are occurring in rapid succession, something \u200bwe’ve never seen before,” he said.<\/p>\n
The \u200blake’s remaining water is brown and reduced to a thin central ribbon, \u200cwhere fish are now confined and \u200ba couple of swans \u200bpaddle. A nearby waterfall that flows out of the lake, the Saut de Doubs, has virtually dried up, residents say.<\/p>\n
“It’s so beautiful when there’s water, when it’s \u200bflowing. It’s an idyllic, wonderful \u200cplace,” said Martial Beyeler, a 69-year-old resident. “It makes me sad to see \u200bthe place like this.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Cecile Mantovani and Denis Balibouse; Writing and additional \u200breporting by Emma Farge and Alex Richardson)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Denis Balibouse and Cecile Mantovani LES BRENETS, Switzerland, July 30 (Reuters) – Lake Brenets, a long, winding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[53562,17,26995],"class_list":["post-110015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-swiss-french-border","tag-switzerland","tag-water-levels"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117009462497636441","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}