CHENGDU: The month-long heat wave is over in the western part of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, but the drought is expected to get worse in the eastern and southern parts of the province.

According to the Sichuan Weather Bureau, from today to next Monday, western Sichuan will have heavy rain and rainstorms, while temperatures above 33 C will be expected in the east and south.

Since last Saturday, Sichuan has witnessed rainfall, which lowered the temperature in most parts of the province to below 30 C for six days. The rainfall mitigated the severe drought in 50 years.

According to the Central Meteorological Station, hot days with temperatures ranging from 35 to 37 C will be expected in most parts of neighbouring Chongqing in the days to come.

As recent rainfall has failed to mitigate the drought in most parts of Chongqing, people are still having trouble getting water and economic losses are on the rise, said the Chongqing Anti-Flood and Drought Fight Headquarters.

Its statistics show that nearly 7.9 million people and 7.3 million cattle are facing difficulties getting drinking water.

About 1.3 million hectares of farmland have been affected by the drought in 39 districts and counties in Chongqing.

A total of 319,000 hectares of farmland will not have a harvest, with losses amounting to nearly 5.9 billion yuan (US$740 million). Some 28,000 ponds in the city have dried up.

In Tongnan County of the municipality, the hardest hit in the drought, not a single drop of rain has fallen for three consecutive months.

"The talk of the day among the villagers is how to get water," said Jin Huizhong, a middle-aged farmer in the county's Gaobei Village.

Jin has to fetch water from a reservoir 3 kilometres away. "The water is not clean as water levels in the reservoir drop," he added.

Eight ducks and a bamboo forest in his backyard have died of thirst. His 0.3 of a hectare of paddy field has yielded only about 100 kilograms of rice, about one-tenth that of a normal year.

According to the Tongnan County Disaster Relief Office, most reservoirs in the county were built in the 1950s and 1960s. Due to the arbitrary felling of trees, which began in the 1970s, soil erosion is serious.

The beds of many reservoirs are high as mud brought about by soil erosion has filled the reservoirs. As a result, many of them cannot hold water.

(China Daily 08/25/2006 page3)