17m people suffer drinking water shortage in SW China
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-08-13 09:03
More than 17 million people in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality and
the neighboring Sichuan Province are tortured by serious lack of adequate
drinking water due to continuous droughts and searing heat.
The month-long droughts have affected 14 million people in 40 counties in
Chongqing and 6.1 million run out of drinking water.
In Sichuan, the temperature has kept above 38 Celsius degrees during the past
month. Last Friday, the temperature in the province's county of Guang'an climbed
to 42.8 Celsius degrees.
The Droughts made it difficult for 3.1 million people in Sichuan to get as
much drinking water as they need.
Crops on large tracts of farmland have withered up. Many regions have no
harvests at all. The droughts caused economic losses of 9.23 billion yuan (about
1.15 billion U.S. dollars) in the two regions.
The local governments have allocated funds to help residents fight against
drought by tapping ground water and improving water conservation facilities.
Related departments have been requested to make daily reports of drought
situation and drought relief work has already been carried
out.
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