Raw sewage has been flowing into the Mediterranean Sea, at a rate of about 30,000 cubic meters a day, since a main sewage pipe in Haifa was damaged Monday. A Kishon River Authority official said the spill will do serious harm to the ecology of the river, which is being rehabilitated.

The damage occurred when employees of the Solel Boneh construction company who were drilling on a Haifa street hit a main sewage line. Untreated sewage flooded the Gedora stream, one of the Kishon's main tributaries, reaching the river and the sea.

The Solel Boneh contractor was laying drainage pipe for Yefe Nof, a subsidiary of the Haifa municipality. Apparently neither he nor the project planners knew there was a sewage line near their work site.