Worst Drought in Fifty Years Hits China

China has declared a top-level emergency for the country's worst drought in five decades that has left more than 4 million people without proper drinking water.

The crisis was raised to a level one emergency from level two late Thursday, the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief said on its Web site.

That means the Flood Control and Drought Relief office takes control of the relief effort. It also triggers help from railway, civil aviation and other transport departments.

The announcement said rainfall in many parts of northern and central China has been 50 to 80 percent less than normal, and that 4.29 million people and more than 2 million livestock were without proper drinking water.

China suffers from an uneven distribution of its water resources, where per person water availability in the north is less than one-fourth that in southern China. Weather patterns in the arid north and flood-prone south cost the government tens of millions of dollars in lost productivity each year.

The drought, which began in November, has affected 25.5 million acres (10.33 million hectares) of crops, the announcement said.

Almost half of the wheat crop in the eight provinces — Hebei, Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi and Gansu — were threatened, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xinhua reported that President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao had ordered all-out efforts to fight the drought at a Cabinet meeting Thursday. It said the government had allocated 400 million yuan ($58.5 million) for relief work.

Television news broadcasts have shown dry, cracked farm fields and crops withering in the ground.

State media has reported that the drought was the worst in some areas since the early 1950s.

The dry spell since November has affected at least 9.53 million hectares of farmland, or 43 percent of the country's winter wheat supplies, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) said in an online update on the drought Wednesday.

The drought-hit area, which is still rising, has increased more than a hundredfold from what was experienced last year, the ministry said. The dry weather has also resulted in water shortages for 1.85 million heads of livestock, it said.

The situation is expected to continue as no rain has been forecast for the next 10 days in the affected regions, meteorological agencies said.

"The duration, scope and impact of the drought are rare," said Zheng Guoguang, chief of the China Meteorological Administration.

The drought has hit more than 60 percent of the wheat crop in Henan and Anhui provinces. Henan, a major supplier of winter wheat, saw 105 consecutive days without rain as of yesterday.

The crop accounts for about 18 percent of the country's total annual grain output.

Meteorological authorities in Henan have called the drought its worst since 1951. About 3.3 million hectares of farmland in Henan used for wheat, or 63 percent of its total area used to grow the crop, have been affected by the drought. At least 130,000 people are also suffering water shortages, local authorities said.

"A conservative estimate would place drought impact on the main wheat-producing regions at 2 to 5 percent (of annual output)," said Ma Wenfeng, a Beijing-based agriculture analyst.

"The severest-hit regions of Henan and Anhui will see their wheat harvest down by about 20 percent," Ma said.

The MOA raised its drought alert to level one on Tuesday, days after Henan and Anhui issued their first red alerts - the highest level - for the harsh weather.

Shanxi province, where no effective rainfall has been reported for the past 100 days and where 1.06 million people and 190,000 heads of livestock are facing water shortages, has also been on high alert for drought since Tuesday.

Similarly, neighboring Shaanxi province raised its drought alert on the same day. Provinces such as Shandong, Hebei, Gansu, Jiangsu and certain regions in Hubei and Hunan are also suffering from severe drought. In many regions, rainfall this winter has been more than 70 percent below average, the MOA said.

Beijing has also had more than 100 days without rainfall, a situation not seen in 38 years, the authorities said.