More than 100,000 people and 81,000 head of livestock in Hunan Province are suffering from drinking water shortages due to prolonged drought, the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters said on Friday.

According to the headquarters, drought since June 25 has affected 300,000 hectares of crops in the 32 cities and counties across the province.

Only 680 millimeters of rainfall were recorded over the past three weeks, 22 percent lower than the average in previous years. The two million water conservancy projects in the province reported a storage of 13.3 billion cubic meters, only half their designed storage volume.

A total of 73 reservoirs and 577 wells in rural areas have dried up.

Local meteorological station forecast on Friday that the drought would continue for two weeks at least.

(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2007)