About 1.93 million people living in four southern provinces of China are suffering from water shortages due to continuous drought, the office of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on Friday.

Statistics from the office showed that 1.93 million people and 1.01 million heads of livestock in the provinces of Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian are short of water. A total area of 1.61 million hectares of crops have been affected, with 430,000 hectares of fields having no water at all to grow rice, and the worst-hit provinces are Jiangxi and Henan.

Vice director of the office Cheng Dianlong said the drought-hit areas were having 50 to 90 percent less rainfall this July than the average rainfall over previous years. Water sources from major local rivers are 20 to 30 percent lower than usual. The drought is expected to continue in the coming ten days.

(Xinhua News Agency July 28, 2007)