Drought lingers in southern, eastern China

GUANGZHOU, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Lingering drought continues to play havoc in southern and eastern China, stunting rice crop, lowering water level in reservoirs and leaving hundreds of thousands of people short of drinking water.

In the southern Guangdong Province where the precipitation in the first 10 months saw a 14 percent drop compared with the average level of the past years, major reservoirs along Zhujiang and Xijiang, the province's two main rivers, have been reporting less water reservation.

Statistics showed that the average water runoff at Wuzhou hydrometric station along Xijiang River in the first ten days of October had recorded a 70 percent decrease from the average level of the past years, a historic low since 1941.

In the eastern Shandong Province, 330,000 hectares of cropland have been affected by the drought. The situation is expected to worsen in the coming week as no precipitation is forecast.

The drought has left more than 110,000 people in the southeastern Fujian short of drinking water. Thirty reservoirs have dried up in the parched province.

In the eastern Jiangxi Province, no major precipitation has been reported over the past 31 days with water levels of rivers and lakes running low.