Drought-hit south-west China faces tragedy if dry spell continues
Peh Shing Huei, China Bureau Chief Straits Times 6 Apr 10;
CHUXIONG (YUNNAN): The Prosperity Pagoda overlooking Chuxiong city is a cruel reminder to residents that the heavens can sometimes heed their prayers only too well.
The seven-storey piece of architecture was first built during the Ming Dynasty as an offering to the gods to put an end to floods that had battered the town whenever the Longchuan River overflowed. That was about 500 years ago.
Now, the Longchuan is dry, Chuxiong is parched after six months without rain, and the pagoda has become a tower of irony.
If the heavens do not open up soon, tragedy could befall the half a million residents of this prefecture in south-western Yunnan province, more than a two-hour drive west of capital Kunming.
'May 20. That's the last day rain must come,' said Mr Li Xingzhou, the chief of Shiteng village. 'Or it would be too late for us to plant our summer crops.'
The village and other parts of the Chuxiong prefecture have seen their spring harvest almost completely wiped out as south-western China battles its most severe drought in nearly a century.
Wheat, rape plants and long beans have failed to make the cut, as the dry spell damaged at least 3 million hectares of crop land in Yunnan.
Large swathes of Sichuan and Guizhou provinces and the Guangxi region also remained parched, with agricultural losses estimated at 23.7 billion yuan (S$4.8 billion) and about 24 million people hit by water shortage.
In Chuxiong city, within Chuxiong prefecture, urban folk have to live without water two days a week, as the local authorities turn off the taps. Saucemaker Chen Shunyi, 54, said: 'We used to shower twice a week, but now we do it just once. I have not even mopped my floor for the past month.'
In the villages, the conditions are much harsher. In Shiteng village, the government has been rationing drinking water too, with deliveries once every three days. Each household gets a vat.
'We have to use it very carefully or it will not be enough,' said farmer Zheng Mingying, 60, amid a very slight drizzle last Friday, which was the result of rainmaking efforts by the government, which tried to succeed where the gods have so far failed, shooting silver iodide into the air to induce rain.
The village received a little more water last month when the government drilled two emergency wells, part of 1,600 that have been dug across the drought zone.
The water holes have earned Shiteng a bit of a shine in the area, with farmers from neighbouring villages eagerly pointing this reporter in their direction to 'take a look at the wells'.
But village chief Li told The Straits Times that the wells can supply potable water to only half of its 1,000 households, and they are still desperately in need of external aid.
They have been preparing seedlings of tobacco and rice in tiny plots that are still arable, to be ready for the moment rain comes. Villagers are banking on the heavens to stick to its annual rain season timetable, opening its floodgates next month.
Still, there are fears that the summer rains might not fall. A senior drought relief official warned last week of no wet weather in the middle of next month. 'In the worst-case scenario, there would be no water supply. A dry spell will also emerge in north China, where spring drought occurs in nine out of every 10 years,' he told state-run newspaper China Daily.
If that happens, there could be a food crisis and prices of vegetables, which have already tripled in the last month in Chu-xiong prefecture, could soar even higher.
There could also be a larger outflow of farmers to the cities, forsaking the fields for a daily wage, no matter how low.
Mr Song Defu, 36, for instance, who has just returned home to prepare for the sowing season, is thinking of heading out again, back to back-breaking work at brick kilns.
He said: 'There are few people here because there is nothing left to do. More and more young men are leaving to be workers in the city. This drought has made it impossible for us to survive in the countryside.'
At the neighbouring field, Madam Luo Qiping, 38, one of four women tending to the farmland, pointed out that most of the men have gone to the cities to find work. She added: 'We are praying for rain to come soon, otherwise we are going to be in big trouble. We are now depending on the heavens for our next bowl of rice.'
