Southeast China's coastal provinces and parts of southwest China
are continuing to suffer from a lack of rain and high temperatures.
The government in south China's Guangdong
Province has allocated 12 million yuan (US$1.4 million) in
emergency funds to fight the rarely seen persistent drought
conditions that have plagued the province since last winter,
according to reports reaching Beijing yesterday.
Only 4.7 billion cubic meters of water, about 28 percent of the
previous year's volume, have been stored in Guangdong's reservoirs
so far this month as a result of the lack of rainfall, high
evaporation rates and the consumption of water for spring
sowing.
In
Guangdong, since October only 289 millimeters of rain have fallen,
or less than 56 percent of the average rainfall for the same period
in previous years.
As
a result, farmers cannot transplant rice seedlings in many paddy
fields in eastern and western parts of Guangdong because there is
no water to irrigate the transplanted rice seedlings.
So
far, the drought has threatened more than 400,000 hectares (988,400
acres) of crops, leaving at least 1.6 million residents facing a
drinking water shortage and drying up 1,300 reservoirs across the
province.
Mobilizing all the province's forces to combat the drought,
Guangdong authorities are preparing to try artificial rainfall
measures when weather conditions are suitable.
In
southwest China's
Sichuan Province and Chongqing
Municipality, special emergency loans have been allocated for
farmers to buy irrigation equipment and diesel oil to keep the soil
moist.
It
has rained or snowed less than normal in most parts of China since
the end of last year.
North China is also experiencing its third year of consecutive
catastrophic droughts in its north, northeast and northwest
provinces, water experts said.
Some farmers may face temporary grain shortages when the old crop
is consumed before the new crop is harvested as a result of the
effects of the drought, they said.
Last month, the central government earmarked 100 million yuan
(US$12 million) in special subsidies for drought relief for 15.9
million people and 15.2 million livestock in north China.
Much of the money is scheduled to be given to needy farmers in the
coming days, said officials with the State Flood Control and
Drought Relief Headquarters.
To
alleviate the grain shortage, governments in Henan and Shanxi
provinces are opening granaries to lend grain to farmers while
reducing or exempting them from some of their agricultural
taxes.
By
the end of last month, the drought had scorched more than 21
million hectares (51.891 million acres) of farmland, or at least 16
percent of China's total, statistics show.
(China
Daily May 9, 2002)