Flooding could force 90,000 to evacuate

The Bolivian government is drawing up plans to evacuate the northeastern city of Trinidad, which has over 90,000 inhabitants, if devastating flooding worsens, President Evo Morales said on Sunday.

The worst floods to strike Bolivia in 25 years have isolated Trinidad and killed some 35 people. Officials fear the floodwaters may spill over a dike surrounding the city.

"We have instructed the authorities to draft a plan to evacuate Trinidad in case the water keeps rising, because if the water flows over the dike, the whole of Trinidad will be under water, it will be washed away," Morales said during a trip to the central Cochabamba region, according to state news agency ABI.

The capital of Beni province, Trinidad is surrounded by a roadway that acts as a dike protecting the city from the frequent floods. Residents say the water is rising about 2 inches a day and it is only a matter of time before it flows over the dike.

Hundreds of people have already abandoned their swamped homes and are now living in tents outside Trinidad, while others have taken refuge in churches and schools.

The government says some 350,000 Bolivians are suffering the hardships of extreme weather triggered by El Nino, an oscillation of marine-atmospheric systems characterized by warm surface waters in the eastern Pacific, aggravated by global warming.

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Morales blamed the flooding on industrialized nations "that pollute the environment and change the weather."

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Heavy rains have also affected the eastern province of Santa Cruz, the country's agricultural heartland, washing out some 494,000 acres of crops -- including 383,000 acres of soy, the main agricultural export.

Aid from countries including the United States, Italy, Venezuela, Peru and Argentina, is arriving. But the destruction to the roads and a shortage of aircraft mean it cannot reach many of the affected areas.