Missouri levee breaks as U.S. flooding continues

WINFIELD, Missouri (Reuters) - The Mississippi River onFriday burst through an earthen levee that may have beenweakened by burrowing muskrats, swamping a Missouri town andadding to billion-dollar losses in U.S. Midwest flooding thathas fuelled fears of soaring world food prices.

The levee break, the 36th in the last two weeks, sent atorrent of muddy water into Winfield, a town of about 800people north of St. Louis, where officials said about 3,000acres (1,214 hectares) of crop land was submerged.

In all about 40,000 acres (16,200 hectares) of land has nowbeen flooded in Missouri.

Fears that as many as 5 million acres (2 million hectares)of corn and soybeans have been lost to flooding in the world'slargest grain and food exporter have pushed corn and livestockprices to record highs in the last week.

The Midwest storms and torrential rains have killed atleast 24 people since late May. More than 38,000 people havebeen driven from their homes, mostly in Iowa where 83 of 99counties have been declared disaster areas.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt said up to 150 homes may beflooded in Winfield, where volunteers had laboured for a weekfortifying levees and piling sandbags. They began again at afall-back position on Friday to prevent more widespread damage.

"They really are involved in a race against that water,"Blunt told reporters. "It's really just a reminder of howpowerful a force the Mississippi River is."

ANIMAL BURROWS

Officials said the levee break began in an area wheremuskrats, semi-aquatic rodents common in U.S. lakes andstreams, had been digging.

"We believe the original breach was attributed to animalburrows created sometime in the past" and even though the holeswere plugged, "the area remained problematic," the LincolnCounty Emergency Operations Command said in a statement.

Scattered heavy rains again were reported in the region onFriday and forecasters warned more flooding was a threatbecause the sodden ground can absorb little more.

But the National Weather Service forecasts for Saturday andSunday called for rains to ease off in the worst-hit areas.

Heavy rains this month have caused more than $6 billion (3billion pounds) in crop damage in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana,Missouri and Nebraska, a key growing region of the world'sbiggest grain and feed exporter, according to the American FarmBureau Federation.

"It's a tragic, devastating disaster," Russ Kremer, a grainand livestock farmer who is president of the Missouri FarmersUnion, said of the worst Midwest floods in 15 years.

He said towns like Winfield and hundreds of thousands ofacres of prime crop land submerged in the region represent "acomplete loss for a lot of people. It will have a significanteffect on the market."

Corn prices hit a record at the Chicago Board of Trade inovernight screen trading on Friday at $8.25 per bushel in theJuly 2009 contract, more than double the 40-year average.

Corn is the main feed for livestock, is used for ethanolfuel and contributes to hundreds of other food and industrialproducts throughout the economy.

Before the floods, stockpiles of corn in the United States-- which ships 54 percent of all world corn exports -- hadalready been projected to fall to 13-year lows next year.

So the effect on global food prices as U.S. prices rise hasalarmed everyone from central bankers to food aid groups.

FARMERS LOSING HOPE

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said on Friday that 45,000 squaremiles (116,500 sq km) of the state had been hit by tornadoes orflooding, including 340 towns, with extensive damage to roadand rail lines at a cost reaching into the "tens of billions ofdollars."

"We are beginning a (recovery) effort which could takeyears," Culver said told reporters.

Iowa officials said this week at least 2.5 million acres(1.01 million hectares) of corn and soybeans, well above 10percent of planted acreage in the top U.S. producing state forthose crops, needs to be replanted. But it is too late in theseason for good yields on replanted fields.

Jason Roose, an Iowa corn and soybean farmer who is ananalyst for U.S. Commodities in Des Moines, said he had plannedto replant his acreage this week.

"But it didn't happen. I'm not able to do anything, andeveryone else around here is in the same boat," he said.

The Des Moines Register reported that the first half of2008 was the wettest in Iowa since record-keeping began in the19th century, with nearly 2 feet (0.7 metre) of rain.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where 4,000 homes were flooded twoweeks ago, the city's broken sewage treatment plant wasreported allowing 25 million gallons (114 million litres) ofraw sewage to drain into the Cedar River daily.

Chemicals from farm fields and other toxic substances leftbehind as waters recede have created a potential health threat.But drinking water supplies remain unpolluted in most areas.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Shumaker and Sam Nelson inChicago. Writing by Michael Conlon in Chicago; Editing by PeterBohan and Xavier Briand)