With the arrival of the 1st of October, the Embalse de Viñuela is so low that the tap has been turned off completely for irrigation.

Those farmers who had 1,500 cubic metres of water, per hectare, per year, have used it all up and so that’s it.

This is the first time that the Junta has adopted such a radical decision by literally closing the stopcocks on farmers in the Axarquía. What water is left is for the 160,000 inhabitants of the 14 municipalities in the comarca.

But it is not only the reservoir because the water levels in one of the wells that feed Vélez-Málaga, Molino de las Monjas, has dropped below a functioning level

The Embalse de La Viñuela now stands at only 10.1% of its capacity, which is equivalent to 16.7 hectometres. In other words, unless a miracle happens, it will reach the record set since the reservoir was built over 30 years ago, of containing 15 hectometres in October 2008.

Yet even back then the Junta did not close the tap on farmers.

(News: Velez-Malaga, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia – photo: still from video)