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Severe Drought Causes Drinking-Water Shortages in Wuhan
The severest drought in recent 120 years hit Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, due to the continued dryness since February. It's learned from the Wuhan Anti-Drought Headquarters that 75 percent of the cultivated land are affected by the drought and 363,000 people and 100,000 animals lack sufficient drinking water.
According to materials provided by the Wuhan Meteorology Bureau, from February to May 20, the rainfall of Wuhan was 101 mm, only 20 percent of the average annual rainfall, the temperature was obviously higher than that of normal years to reach 36ˇăC on May 14, setting two records of the lowest rainfall and highest temperature of the corresponding period of previous years. Meanwhile the air was dry and the amount of evaporation was over 385 mm (Feb 1-May 20), four times the rainfall in the same period. The drought is the most serious since the appearance of meteorological record in 1880.
Water levels of the Yangtze and Hanjiang rivers and some lakes have dropped to the lowest, the water levels of the overwhelming majority of reservoirs have approached or dropped below the dead water level and over 70 percent of the small reservoirs have dried up.
The drinking water for both man and livestock is the most urgent and serious problem. Since May 4, the sanitation and anti-epidemic department has been repeatedly monitoring, purifying and disinfecting the drinking water for man and livestock in order to prevent drinking water from generating infectious diseases.
So far, Wuhan has put in a large amount of manpower and material resources (over 600,000 people, more than 20,000 machines and 70 million yuan of funds) to fight against drought.
According to the prediction of meteorological department of Wuhan, there will be rainfall in the next few days and at the end of this month, but the severe drought can hardly be relieved; rainfall will increase somewhat in late May and mid-June, but it's still lower than that of the same period of past years and there still may be obvious drought in summer and fall.
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