China's biggest drought 'in 100 years'
Pastor Dale Morgan
China's biggest drought 'in 100 years'*
From correspondents in Shanghai
August 31, 2006 11:22pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse
A MAJOR drought affecting millions of people in southwestern China was
being called "the worst in a century", as state press reports said
searing temperatures had set off uncontrollable fires.
Firefighters and more than 1500 residents were battling forest blazes
that had consumed 67 hectares in the northern part of Chongqing
municipality since yesterday, a report by China Radio International said.
Officials in Chongqing were calling the drought the worst in a century
as a total of 21 million people had found themselves affected, with more
than seven million of them without adequate drinking water.
“It's the biggest drought in 100 years,” the Wen Hui Bao newspaper
quoted Chongqing vice mayor Chen Guangguo as saying, while an official
with the disaster relief office in Chongqing agreed.