Failed crops in Hubei Province, China, caused by the worst drought in record, 20 August 2012. In Langhe Village, worst hit in Suizhou, nearly one third of the total 233 hectares of land is expected to yield nothing. Another one third of the land will only yield 40 percent of what it should have produced. SINA

20 August 2012 (SINA) – In Suizhou City of Hubei Province, where maximum temperatures have been as high as 35 degree centigrade, since July, insufficient rainfall over the past 25 months is endangering the drinking water supply for more than 520,000 local residents and 160,000 livestock. In Langhe Village, worst hit in Suizhou, nearly one third of the total 233 hectares of land is expected to yield nothing. “Another one third of the land will only yield 40 percent of what it should have produced,” moaned the village chief Lu Renfu. The 53-year-old said the ongoing drought is the worst he has ever seen in all his life. Zhan Shengquan, deputy head of the government of Hedian Township, where Lu’s village is located, told Xinhua the water storage of the largest reservoir in the township had shrunk to 3.5 million cubic meters, from over 46 million cubic meters, as the drought continues. “We do not have enough water supply for the residents, let alone for the irrigation,” said Zhan. Suizhou received only 340 mm of rainfall since mid-July – only half of previous years and the least since 1957, when the city’s first meteorological log could be traced, according to deputy head of the city’s Drought Relief and Flood Control Office Yu Pengcheng. Extreme weathers are also gripping other parts of China, where the south is bracing for Kai-Tak, a tropical storm that has developed into a typhoon. Elsewhere, the north is expected to be lashed by torrential rains.

Most serious drought for 6 decades in Hubei via World Catastrophe Map