Moderate rain relief to parched land

By Wang Qian/Zhao Ruixue (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-13 08:07

Mild rainfall brought some relief to farmers in the country's drought-hit areas yesterday, with Beijing too getting its share.

The rain could push down the unusually high temperatures in North China by 4C to 6C today, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said.

"Mild showers will continue till Saturday with 5-10 mm of precipitation expected in severely drought-hit provinces such as Shandong and Hebei," NMC chief forecaster Lin Jian said.

Lin, however, does not think the sudden drop in temperature will harm wheat cultivation. Instead, it will protect the soil by creating a cold layer of topsoil that would insulate the earth beneath.

More than half of the farmland in Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces are in the grip of the worst drought in half a century, the Ministry of Agriculture said. But NMC officials said the mild showers since yesterday morning brought relief to most of them.

Rain has been forecast for the drought-hit southern and western regions next month, which could effectively ease the problem, they said.

Local authorities have prepared thousands of weather rocket shells to be fired into the sky to stimulate precipitation in the drought-hit regions.

As one of the worst hit provinces, Shandong heaved a great sigh of relief after yesterday's rainfall.

Shandong provincial meteorological bureau expert Zhan Shaolin said 10 mm of precipitation can be expected across the province between last night and today, but it would only ease the situation and not end the drought.

Lin forecast moderate rainfall for Hebei, too, during the same period.

Beijing yesterday ended its 38-year record of 110 days without rain, thanks to cloud-seeding. State broadcaster CCTV reported that the Air Force sent seven airplanes to make rain artificially in Shandong and Beijing yesterday.

Though many Beijing residents tried to avoid going out in the rain, some taxi drivers made a killing.

Cabbie Huang Jinrong said his income doubled for the day because of the rain.

The worst dry spell in 50 years has parched more than 40 percent of the nation's total wheat land, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

It had affected 18 million hectares of farmland in the country till yesterday, and left about 4.8 million people and 2.5 million heads of livestock facing water shortage, according to figures of the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.