Parts of China’s parched north got light rain after authorities fired shells loaded with cloud-seeding chemicals into the sky, but there was no end in sight for its worst drought in five decades, the government said yesterday.
Beijing has declared an emergency across China’s north, where 4.4 million people lack adequate drinking water and winter wheat crops are withering.
“The drought situation will not be eased in the near future,” a national weather bureau statement said.
Some areas got a sprinkling of rain and sleet on Saturday after clouds were hit with 2,392 rockets and 409 cannon shells loaded with chemicals, the weather bureau said. It said clouds were thin and moving out of the region, making conditions poor for more rainmaking.
Rainfall in northern and central China is 50 percent to 80 percent below normal, the Flood Control and Drought Relief Office said. Xinhua news agency said the drought that started in November threatens up to half the wheat crop in eight provinces — Hebei, Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi and Gansu.
On Saturday, one county in Shaanxi received 23mm of precipitation, the weather bureau said. Other areas received less than 5mm.
State television yesterday showed farmers with parched wheat seedlings that were barely ankle-high.
Beijing has promised 86.7 billion yuan (US$12.6 billion) in aid to struggling farmers. That will add to the strain on government finances as it carries out a multibillion-dollar stimulus package to boost slowing economic growth.
The Agriculture Ministry said the drought is to blame for an outbreak of a fungal disease called stripe rust that attacks wheat.
It said the disease can cut output by up to 40 percent.
Drinking water is being trucked to villagers and the government is launching a massive irrigation effort with water from rivers and wells.
Water Resources Minister Chen Lei (陳雷) said water levels in the Yellow River, a key source for farms and a string of cities, are down 20 percent to 40 percent, the People’s Daily newspaper reported.
Across eight provinces, irrigation has brought water to about half the 11 million hectares of drought-affected wheat crops, the Agriculture Ministry said on its Web site yesterday.
Authorities said they would divert water from the country’s two longest rivers to help farmers deal with the drought, state media said yesterday.
Water from the Yangtze River, the country’s longest, will be diverted to the northern areas of eastern Jiangsu Province, Xinhua reported, citing Zhang Zhitong, a senior Ministry of Water Resources emergency official.
Floodgates will also be opened in Inner Mongolia along the Yellow River, the country’s second-longest river, to increase water supply for central Henan and Shandong provinces, Zhang said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS