Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Restaurants get off to a quick start thanks to game-changing policies
High service charges on event ticket refunds call for further regulation
Sunday
- Subscribe
Ships, crops hit by dry spell
Source: Xinhua |
October 21, 2009, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
DROUGHT continued in central and southern Chinese provinces this week, with dozens of ships stranded in shallow rivers and crop harvests almost halved.
Authorities in Jiangxi Province had to demand more water from reservoirs on the upper Ganjiang River, hoping to end a two-month standstill in water traffic.
About 1,500 cubic meters of water per second was diverted into the river for 12 straight hours starting at 1pm on Monday, said a spokesman with the Jiangxi provincial headquarters for flood prevention and drought relief. "We hope this will help clear the traffic bottleneck."
A lack of rain since August had reduced water levels in the Ganjiang River to a record low, and more than 40 cargo ships had been stranded, the spokesman said.
He said the ships - some of them stranded for more than two months - were carrying more than 10,000 tons of cargo.
The local weather bureau said Jiangxi received only 104 millimeters of rain from mid-August to mid-October, about 48 percent of the normal volume.
The Ganjiang River is a major tributary of the Yangtze River and a pivotal path for water traffic in eastern China.
From Monday night, more water was diverted from the Yangtze Three Gorges Dam to help ease the effects of the drought.
Drought has brought water levels to a record low in four of the five major rivers in Jiangxi Province, and in Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake.
In central China's Hunan Province, low water levels in Dongting Lake, China's second largest freshwater lake, forced fishermen to stop fishing in early October, normally the peak season.
Drought along the Xiangjiang River has caused a severe shortage of drinking water for more than 3 million people in the cities of Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan. As of Monday, a stretch of at least 5 kilometers of dry riverbed on the Xiangjiang River was dotted with stranded vessels. In Changsha, people even planted vegetables in the riverbed.
In southern China's Guangdong Province, rain is down by more than 20 percent from average, threatening to halve crop harvests.
In Quanzhou, a city in Fujian Province on the southeastern coast, drought threatened to damage 16,600 hectares of crops, the local drought relief office said.
Authorities in Jiangxi Province had to demand more water from reservoirs on the upper Ganjiang River, hoping to end a two-month standstill in water traffic.
About 1,500 cubic meters of water per second was diverted into the river for 12 straight hours starting at 1pm on Monday, said a spokesman with the Jiangxi provincial headquarters for flood prevention and drought relief. "We hope this will help clear the traffic bottleneck."
A lack of rain since August had reduced water levels in the Ganjiang River to a record low, and more than 40 cargo ships had been stranded, the spokesman said.
He said the ships - some of them stranded for more than two months - were carrying more than 10,000 tons of cargo.
The local weather bureau said Jiangxi received only 104 millimeters of rain from mid-August to mid-October, about 48 percent of the normal volume.
The Ganjiang River is a major tributary of the Yangtze River and a pivotal path for water traffic in eastern China.
From Monday night, more water was diverted from the Yangtze Three Gorges Dam to help ease the effects of the drought.
Drought has brought water levels to a record low in four of the five major rivers in Jiangxi Province, and in Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake.
In central China's Hunan Province, low water levels in Dongting Lake, China's second largest freshwater lake, forced fishermen to stop fishing in early October, normally the peak season.
Drought along the Xiangjiang River has caused a severe shortage of drinking water for more than 3 million people in the cities of Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan. As of Monday, a stretch of at least 5 kilometers of dry riverbed on the Xiangjiang River was dotted with stranded vessels. In Changsha, people even planted vegetables in the riverbed.
In southern China's Guangdong Province, rain is down by more than 20 percent from average, threatening to halve crop harvests.
In Quanzhou, a city in Fujian Province on the southeastern coast, drought threatened to damage 16,600 hectares of crops, the local drought relief office said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
