Hundreds of thousands of people in southern and eastern parts of China are facing drinking water shortages as a result of months of reduced rainfall, the central government says. The Ministry of Water Resources said on Thursday that more than 500,000 hectares of arable land had been affected by the drought, leaving 330,000 people in rural areas without a sufficient supply of potable water. Since October, rainfall in regions south of the Yangtze River had been 50 to 80 per cent lower than normal, it said.
Source: South China Morning Post
