Hundreds of barges have become held up on the Mississippi River as a major drought across the US Midwest has taken the major waterway to its lowest depths in decades.
A water level gauge in Memphis, Tennessee, registered a depth below 3.28 metres on Monday, marking the lowest level since 1988, according to Indiana-based American Commercial Barge Line (ACBL).
“Industry is incurring catastrophic impacts to boat capacity, which will in turn drastically decrease tonne-mile productivity for the inland rivers,” ACBL said in a statement.
