Over 1 mln men and women face water shortage in drought-ravaged central China province

The worst drought to hit Hunan Province in practically a century has caused water shortages that have affected 1.11 million folks in this central China province, said an official with the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.

China's "land of fish and rice" has seen its lowest levels of rainfall given that 1910, based on the official. As of Monday, 13 of Hunan's 14 major cities have been affected by the drought, the official stated.

Continuously shrinking lakes and rivers have left 157 towns in Hunan without adequate supplies of water, based on the official.

Over 10 million mu (about 709,000 hectares) of farmland in Hunan have been directly impacted by the drought, with 1.79 million mu of crops rendered unharvestable.

Water levels in 30 percent of Hunan's reservoirs have dropped below "acceptable" levels, preventing them from becoming utilized for irrigation, the official said.

Hunan's Dongting Lake, China's second largest freshwater lake, has seen its water surface shrink to 780 square kilometers, much more than 30 percent less than the level of regular years, according to the official.

The lake's amount of cumulative rainfall has dropped by 50 to 60 percent in comparison to records from prior years, according to the provincial meteorological station.

The Hunan Provincial government has already allocated 310 million yuan (about 47.8 million U.S. dollars) toward drought-relief efforts, such as digging new wells and pumping water into the province from other areas.

Droughts across the country had impacted 104.4 million mu, or much more than five percent, of China's farmlands as of Sunday, the country's top drought relief authority stated.

The lingering drought has affected three.29 million men and women and 950,000 livestock inside the provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, and Hunan, according to the latest statistics from the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters (SFDH).

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