Head of agrarian chamber tallies storm damages

The head of the Czech Agrarian Chamber, Jan Veleba, has revealed that Wednesday’s storms that buffeted parts of the Czech Republic led to extensive damages in agriculture: farmers will see an estimated 300 thousand tons less grain harvested in 2008, a loss of around 1 billion crowns. Storms on Wednesday evening also caused extensive damage to power lines throughout much of the country. Prague’s airport also saw delays. The power utility CEZ has estimated that some 750,000 customers were affected; almost 30,000 remained without power on Friday, although the utility said that for most the situation would return to normal by the end of the day.