Close on 5 million people and more than 2.5 million head of
livestock on the Chinese mainland are suffering drinking water
shortages as drought continues to grip parts of the country.
Shandong, a major agricultural province on
east China's seaboard, has been suffering from drought since
autumn.
In Guizhou, a land-locked province in southwest
China, 707,000 people and 326,000 head of livestock are battling
with drinking water shortages.
Information from the Office for Natural Disaster Relief in
southwest Sichuan said the province has been trying to
cope with a serious drought since winter, with 1.12 million people,
together with 1.47 million head of livestock, having difficulty
finding water to drink.
Sichuan meteorological authorities said that temperatures had
been abnormally high, and 74 out of 131 agricultural counties and
cities had experienced less rainfall than normal years.
Drought continues to rake Chongqing, the most important city on the
upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
Chongqing vice mayor Ma Zhengqi warned on Friday drinking water
would be a problem for nearly six million people until the flood
season starts in May.
Chongqing's reservoirs currently hold 1.24 billion cubic meters
of water, only 45 percent of the normal amount. About 1.5 million
people in 25 districts and counties are already suffering water
shortages, he said.
The drought has affected agricultural production in all these
regions.
In Shandong, where crops on 1.12 million hectares, or about one
fifth of the province's arable land, are starved of water, local
farmers have had to leave more than 200,000 hectares of farmland
idle, according to Fan Liju, a senior engineer with Shandong
Provincial Climate Center.
The prolonged drought has seen underground water levels in some
parts of the province drop alarmingly and water quality worsen,
said local sources.
Shandong, the second most populous region in China, is one of
the country's leading grain producers. But it has had to make do
with low rainfall since September.
Statistics from Shandong Provincial Meteorological Observatory
show that only 51.4 millimeters of rainfall were recorded between
Sept.1, 2006 and Feb.1, 2007, 83.7 mm less than normal years or 194
mm less than for the same period a year ago.
Measures have been taken to alleviate the drought in different
regions.
In addition to developing sources of water and preserving water
for use in emergency in more than 50,000 places, some Shandong
localities have begun popularizing water-efficient irrigation
methods.
Reservoirs across the province have provided more than five
billion cubic meters of extra water to combat drought and offer
drinkable water to 3.9 million people and 690,000 livestock.
At the request of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief
Headquarters on Friday, operators of three hydropower stations on
the upper reaches of Jialing River, a tributary of the mighty
Yangtze, on Saturday morning released water downstream in a bid to
quench Chongqing's thirst.
The water was expected to arrive in Chongqing on Saturday
afternoon.
(Xinhua News Agency March 4, 2007)
