Severe Drought in China Drains Rivers
2009-10-27 9:39
The ongoing drought across southern, central and eastern China has residents concerned. Rivers, including the Yangtze, have been drained to their lowest levels in decades. On Monday the 26th, over 400,000 people in Jiangxi Province faced a drinking water shortage.
Residents living along the riverbanks say they’ve never seen anything like it.
"I've lived here for 37 years. This is the lowest water level I've seen. Normally this is all water, this year it's so low we're planting vegetables."
A stretch of the Yangtze River at Nanjing reached its lowest level since 1986. This is disturbing because the river is one of the country's most important waterways.
The Zhujiang River was at its lowest level in October since 1941. The water flow was 70 percent lower than the average for the same period of time in recent years.
The Xiangjiang River in central Hunan Province also reached a historic low in October.
From August through October, some provinces in the region have received less than half their usual amount of rainfall.
If more rain doesn’t come in November, then the flow of the Yangtze River will worsen as reservoirs that could be used to feed it continue to shrink.
According to China's National Meteorological Center, drought has become more frequent in the country since the 1990s, a phenomenon that could be linked to global warming.
