Drought affects millions in SE China (AP) Updated: 2006-08-17 09:15
BEIJING - A severe drought in southwestern China has forced authorities to
begin trucking in water to millions of people after wells and rivers went dry,
state media said Wednesday.
In dozens of counties surrounding the industrial center of Chongqing, many
households were surviving on a ration of just two buckets of water a day
delivered by water wagons, the Xinhua News Agency said.
Two-thirds of the city's rivers and lakes have dried up since the drought
began in mid-May, the report quoted He Lingyun, a disaster relief official with
the Chongqing's municipal government, as saying.
"The village well has dried up and even the dusty water at the bottom has
been scooped up," said Gu Qixiu, a villager from Chongqing's Zhangguan town.
State television showed on the evening news stretches of parched farmland in
Chongqing where crops were withering or completely dried. Villagers lined up to
fill and hoist away buckets of water.
The drought has also caused the city's vegetable prices to jump by up to 50
percent, the Beijing News reported.
Chongqing and the neighboring province of Hunan are the worst hit by this
summer's sustained drought, which is threatening drinking water for more than
7.8 million people in the city and has resulted in losses of 2.5 billion yuan
(US$313 million; euro246 million), Xinhua said.
The drought has been made even harder to bear by soaring late summer heat. In
Chongqing Wednesday the temperature hovered around 41 degrees Celsius (106
Fahrenheit) after reaching 44.5 degrees Celsius the previous day, the agency
said.
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