Casting lots for water as Henan drought intensifies
Print Edition
RESIDENTS in Xingyao Village are casting lots to get water amid the driest flood season in central China’s Henan Province since 1951.
The amount of rain falling on the province over the past two months has been 60 percent less than in previous years, the Henan Meteorological Bureau said.
As of July 27, about 245,000 people were facing drinking water shortages, and 1.54 million hectares of grain due to be harvested in the autumn was stricken by drought, provincial officials said.
More than half of Henan is suffering serious problems with 20 percent of the land area rated “extremely dry.” More than 50 percent of the province’s small to medium rivers and 35 percent of its small reservoirs have dried up.
The drought is expanding to more areas at a rate of 153,333 hectares per day, said Yang Dayong, director of Henan’s Flood Control and Drought Headquarters.
Many villages haven’t seen rain since the beginning of the year.
In Xingyao, there’s just one well for nearly 1,000 people. “We’ve been short of water for several months. Villagers line up day and night to get the water from the last well,” said Xing Jiangong, Xingyao’s Party secretary.
Xing said the village used to have 12 wells, but 11 had dried up to due years of drought.
The level of water in the well is so low that villagers have to climb down to bail it out and gathering just two buckets can take around 30 minutes. At times, the villagers cast lots to decide who gets the water first.
Xing said some residents have paid the equivalent of their annual income to buy motor tricycles so they can fetch water from a source some 10 kilometers away.
Henan’s worst affected area is in Pingdingshan in the center of the province where the main reservoir is at its lowest level in history.
Farmers there are facing their worst harvest season so far as there is little water to irrigate the fields. Some have given up trying to raise crops.
Central and northern areas had some rain recently but not enough to have any significant impact, according to the provincial weather bureau.
The Henan government has issued an emergency drought alert and has despatched inspection teams across the province.
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