Rice and other autumn crops were now at a "critical period" when it comes to irrigation, warned an official from the country's Water Resources Ministry warned on Wednesday (August 17). Around 820,000 hectares (2 million acres) of arable land from Sichuan in the southwest to central China's Anhui have suffered damage, affecting 830,000 people as well as 160,000 head of livestock, the official said.
Rainfall in the Yangtze basin has been around 45 percent lower than normal since July, and high temperatures are likely to persist for at least another week, official forecasts said.
