Drought worsens in NE China

A drought in northeast China has worsened since June, and is expected to last through August. Liaoning, Jilin and Inner Mongolia had nearly 3 million hectares of thirsty crops on Wednesday, about 60 percent of the country's total drought-hit croplands.

Northeast China's Liaoning province, a major grain producer in the country, is battling its worst drought in 60 years. Local governments have tried numerous methods to fight the drought, which has affected vast farming areas.

"All those red structures you see over there are the water storing facilities that have been helping to ease the bottleneck of the drought. But the total amount of water we have for farming the land won't last very long, if there is still no sign of rain," Liu Tiefei, secretary of Jianchang County, Liaoning province, said.

In the reservoir of Jianchang county, the drought has sucked the last drop of water dry. Water-saving irrigation methods like recycling are being used among some villages, and locals are taking huge financial losses.

"Normally we can rely on the water from this reservoir to irrigate at least 300 MU (20 hectares) of crop fields, but with not even one drop of water left here, it's killing the harvest season," Pu Zhixian with Jianchang Reservoir, Liaoning province, said.

Experts believe the drought may have been caused by the weather phenomenon known as El Nino, which typically triggers drought in northern China while bringing more rain to southern China. In Suizhong, a county by the Bohai sea, locals have to travel miles just to get water for daily use.

"The emergency water supply from underground can not meet the demand from the villages nearby, where thousands of trees have already died; and it's very inconvenient for us to get water from miles away," Wang Shuhui, villager of Suizhong County, Liaoning province, said.

As the drought worsens, there's still no sign of rain.

Liaoning province has raised its emergency response level to the third-highest in a bid to reduce the drought's impact. Local meteorologists say they are even prepared to fire artificial rain-making rockets to force rainfall, in hopes of bringing more precipitation to the region's vast croplands.