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BEIJING : China has raised its drought emergency to the highest level for the first time as a dry spell spreads, leaving millions with little or no water and threatening wheat supplies, state media said Friday.
The decision to go to emergency level one was taken Thursday at meeting of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, Xinhua news agency reported.
The increased alert level was made official at the same time as the central government sent out specialists to all eight major drought-hit regions to help residents with relief supplies and technical aid, the China Daily said.
About 4.3 million people and 2.1 million head of livestock are short of water, the relief headquarters said in a statement, as parts of the nation experience their worst drought since the early 1950s.
About 43 percent of the country's winter wheat supplies are at risk, after some areas have seen no rain for 100 days or more, according to state media.
Vice Premier Hui Liangyu held a state conference Thursday to coordinate and strengthen efforts to help the affected regions, calling for quick financial and material support, the China Daily reported.
Hui also urged local governments to speed up the construction of irrigation systems for crops, the paper added, although it was unclear if this could be done fast enough to help alleviate the current crisis.
The dry spell highlights one of China's main long-term worries, as water resources are becoming rapidly depleted due to fast economic growth.
The capital, Beijing, is particularly badly hit, with experts warning the city, home to 17 million people, will soon have reached the limit beyond which there will not be enough water to go around.
Authorities were already forced in September last year into a six-month emergency diversion scheme that is seeing water pumped from neighbouring Hebei province to Beijing.
The water flows along a 305-kilometre (190-mile) canal stretching from the Hebei capital of Shijiazhuang to Beijing and fed by three major reservoirs.
The canal is part of China's ambitious North-South Water Diversion Project, a multi-billion dollar scheme to bring water from the nation's longest river, the Yangtze, to the parched north.
- AFP/vm
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