Prolonged heavy rains, which forecasters say will hang around for months, damaged Panamanian crops and roads, including the collapse of one to the Centennial Bridge.
The Panama Canal Authority said for the first time in its 96-year history, transit of ships was “temporarily suspended” because the Alajuela and Gatun lakes were at the highest levels ever recorded, Newsroom Panama said. The 48-mile-long, man-made shipping channel was closed in 1989 when the United States invaded Panama to depose strongman Manuel Noriega, and in 1915 and 1916 because of landslides, CNN reported.