The worst drought in a century has been ravaging China’s southwest provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou and the region of Guangxi, leaving 20.5 million residents and 12.6 million heads of livestock with insufficient drinking water.

A farmer carries pails to transport water from a partially dried-up pond at the outskirts of Yingtan, Jiangxi province.
Since 1517, when records began in the small Chinese village of Xiazha, there has always been water in its three wells.
This spring, however, the wells dried up.
“I’m 83 years old, I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Yang Kuanren, a villager in Xiazha, in Guangxi province. “Not a single drop of water can be seen in our wells. For hundreds of years, we have relied on those wells for irrigation and drinking water and we do not know what to do.
“It is time to start planting the fields, but the earth is so dry we cannot even plough it.”
Three enormous water reservoirs that normally feed the village, and its neighbours, which usually hold enough water to irrigate 5,000 acres of land, have also run dry.

A local farmer looks at dying crop in the field in Shihuitang village of Shiping County, southwest China's Yunnan Province, March 24, 2010
Nearby villages have started drilling new wells, but there is little water to be found, even several hundred feet below ground.
In Guizhou province, many distillers of Maotai – the national alcohol drunk at banquets – have stopped production due to a shortage of spring and tap water.
Asia’s biggest waterfall, Huangguoshu, has been reduced to a trickle. More than 90% of the rivers and reservoirs downstream have dried up.
In Yunnan province, some villagers are traveling for up to three hours to try to find water in valleys.
The normally sub-tropical south of China saw its rainy season evaporate this year, with the average temperature in Yunnan two degrees higher than normal, and rainfall at only half the usual level.

Children wait to collect water distributed by local government in drought-hit Dazhuyuan village, on the outskirts of Kunming, Yunnan Province
Yunnan is the source of several of Asia’s biggest rivers, including the Yangtze and the Mekong and almost a billion people living downstream could be affected as they dry up. The Mekong is at its lowest level for 20 years. Over five million hectares of forests have withered or been ravaged by fires.
As the drought continues to grip, ethnic minority groups preparing for a water-splashing festival in April are now considering alternatives.

















