NANNING - Some 50,000 people are suffering from a severe drought that has plagued parts of South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, local flood control and drought relief authorities said Sunday.

Several counties in the cities of Baise and Hezhou have received little precipitation recently, the Guangxi Flood Control and Drought Relief Command Center said.

In Baise, nearly 180,000 mu (12,000 hectares) of cropland, or 41.3 percent of the city's total farmland, has been parched as a result of the drought, while about half of Hezhou's 290,000 mu of cropland was hit by the drought.

About 50,000 people have had difficulties obtaining drinking water because of the drought, according to the command center.

A continuous drought has also dried up rivers and reservoirs in the county of Longlin, with water reserves decreasing by 65 percent from previous years.