BEIJING: As of Sunday, reservoirs of the Yangtze River, China’s longest one, have discharged 980 million cubic meters of water into the lower reaches to help fight the country’s worst drought, China Media Group (CMG) reported, citing the Ministry of Water Resources.
The discharge is a part of a more extensive water replenishment plan that aims to dispatch 1.48 billion cubic meters of water in total to the lower reaches of the river.
Since July, most areas of the Yangtze River basin have experienced high temperatures accompanied by 45 percent less rainfall than in previous years. According to the ministry, the Yangtze River reservoirs replenished 5.3 billion cubic meters of water in the middle and lower reaches of the river between August 1-15.
So far, drought has affected 2.46 million people and around 2.2 million hectares of farmland in the Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces and the Chongqing Municipality.
A total of 1.35 billion yuan ($198 million) has been allocated for local flood control and drought relief as of Thursday (August 18), according to the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Emergency Management.
Also on Thursday, China’s National Meteorological Center issued this year’s first drought alert, which was upgraded to orange on Saturday. The country has a four-tier, color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
A scorching heatwave in June started the drought. A total of 262 weather stations recorded extreme high temperatures, the strongest in the past six decades during that period.
“The persistent abnormal atmospheric circulation caused continuous high temperature, just like the lid of a pressure cooker which holds hot air too tight to diffuse it out, making the temperature abnormally high and persistent,” said Chen Lijuan, chief forecaster of the country’s National Climate Center.
“We have to face the fact that similar heatwave will occur frequently in the future … it will become a new normal,” Chen said.
Meanwhile, Plunging water levels of the Yangtze River have revealed a submerged island in China’s southwestern city of Chongqing and a trio of Buddhist statues on it that are believed to be 600 years old, state media Xinhua has reported.
The three statues were found on the highest part of the island reef called Foyeliang, initially identified as built during the Ming and Qing dynasties. One of the statues depicts a monk sitting on a lotus pedestal.
The Yangtze’s water levels have been falling rapidly due to a drought and a heatwave in China’s southwestern region. Rainfall in the Yangtze basin has been around 45pc lower than normal since July, and high temperatures are likely to persist for at least another week, official forecasts said. As many as 66 rivers across 34 counties in Chongqing have dried up.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN news exchange item
