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Drought in China affects one million |
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Tuesday, 27 February 2007 |
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The water supplies for around one million people in south west China are in threat, due to severe drought.
Authorities in Chongqing municipality have been forced to send water trucks into the driest areas to provide water for residents and livestock who have gone for weeks without rain.
The Yangtze, China’s longest river has such depleted water levels that navigation has been halted near Chongqing city after a barge carrying 1,400 tons of timber was stranded for several hours.
One of Chongqing's largest drinking water suppliers said the water level had fallen below most of the pipes the company uses to draw water from the river.
"If the water levels in the Yangtze and its upper tributary Jialing River continue to decline, we'll face a real crisis," a spokesman from a local waterworks was quoted as saying.
The region is still recovering from a severe drought last summer, the worst in decades, which forced tens of thousands of farmers to leave in search of work elsewhere. Chongqing municipality is home to about 30 million people.
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