Severe drought has had a debilitating effect on the Yangtze
River, China's longest waterway, over the last two weeks, leaving
1.5 million people in Chongqing Municipality with water shortages,
local water authorities said on Monday.
All reservoirs in Chongqing store 1.17 billion cubic meters of
water at present, only half of the normal amount, said officials
with the Chongqing flood control and drought relief office.
Earlier, local officials estimated 1 million people in Chongqing
suffered from water shortages. The municipality has a population of
28 million.
The drought has also affected 104,000 hectares of farmland and
left nearly 1 million heads of livestock short of water.
A spokesman of Shapingba Waterworks, one of the largest drinking
water suppliers in the city center, told Xinhua News Agency that
only one of its 10 pipes used to pump water from the Yangtze was
still below the water surface and in operation - and that is only
10 cm below the water level.
"If the water levels in the Yangtze and its upper tributary
Jialing River continue to decline, we'll face a real crisis," he
said.
The municipal drought control authority has sent water wagons to
the drought-hit areas to provide water for local people and cattle
and has told local governments to build up reserves.
Some 1,600 people in two villages, namely Huanshan and Xindian,
are totally dependent on water wagon for drinking water.
The local hydrological bureau said water levels in the Yangtze
and Jialing rivers had declined sharply in recent weeks due to a
lack of rainfall. It follows last summer's severe drought that
forced tens of thousands of farmers to eke out a living away from
home -- many ended up picking cotton in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region.
On Sunday, the water level at Cuntan hydrological station in
Chongqing measured 158.43 meters, only 35 centimeters higher than
the record low reported in 1987, said a bureau spokesman surnamed
Wang.
Wang blamed a glut of power plants in the Yangtze's upper
reaches for the decline in water, but did not link the water
shortages with the operation of the Three Gorges Dam, which is
located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze.
Sources with the China Three Gorges Project Corporation said the
water shortage in the upper reaches had not affected the world's
largest water storage facility.
The flow of water into the dam measured 3,700 cubic meters per
second and the water level at the dam was 153.43 meters on Sunday
afternoon, which safeguard the operation of the dam and navigation
in the lower reaches, they said.
But the declining water level in Chongqing has played havoc with
navigation and a cargo ship carrying 1,400 tons of timber was
stranded on Sunday close to Chongqing's Xinggang port. The salvage
operation lasted five hours.
"The Chongqing section of the Yangtze is 0.47 meter below zero
level, while 0.5 meter above zero level is required for safe
shipping," said Xia Shipeng, an official of the Chongqing maritime
safety administration.
A dozen of vessels have gone aground on the Yangtze, Xia
added.
On Monday, the local maritime bureau suspended navigation in the
area between 12:30?PM and 2:30?PM every day for surveying
and dredging.
"The Yangtze suffers drought almost every spring, but this
year's situation is worse than normal," said a sailor, adding the
water level at Chaotianmen Wharf in central Chongqing was "lower by
at least one meter" compared with last year.
The exposed riverbed near the wharf has become a temporary
playground for locals to sunbathe and fly kites.
The Chongqing municipal flood control and drought relief office
said it planned to ease the drought through artificial
rainfall.
The office predicted the drought would last until after the
rainy season begins in May, but will return in the middle of summer
and will last for at least 30 days.
The Chongqing government has advised villagers to plant less
water-consuming crops and make use of water conservation
technologies. Technicians have been dispatched to drought-hit areas
to offer guidance.
Water conservation experts believe most parts of Chongqing will
receive between 1,000 and 1,300 millimeters of rainfall this year,
slightly more than in recent years. But a severe drought is still
likely to affect the southeastern part of the city in mid July.
Chongqing and neighboring Sichuan Province in the upper reaches
of the Yangtze suffered their worst water shortages in more than a
century last summer when the water level and rainfall nearly
halved.
The Yangtze River, the third longest in the world after the Nile
and the Amazon, runs from far west Qinghai and Tibet through 186
cities including Chongqing, Wuhan and Nanjing before emptying into
the sea in Shanghai.
The combined gross domestic product (GDP) of cities along the
Yangtze River accounts for 41 percent of the national total,
according to government statistics.
(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2007)
