Despite rainfall over the past few days and coming precipitation in some of its areas in September, the drought situation in the basin of the Yangtze River, Asia's longest watercourse, remains grim, the Ministry of Water Resources warned on Tuesday.

Due to lingering heat waves and low precipitation, the basin has suffered severe drought since July. On Aug 25 when the region was worst hit, about 4.4 million hectares of farmland were affected, the ministry said in a media release.

On that day, the water supply to almost 5 million people and 920,000 large livestock in 10 provincial regions, including Sichuan and Hunan provinces and Chongqing municipality, was interrupted.

Despite rainfall from Friday to Tuesday in the basin, which relieved the situation in some of the regions, the negative impact of the drought looms large.

As of Tuesday, almost 2.9 million hectares of farmland are still troubled by drought. The number of people and large livestock suffering from water supply interruption has dropped to 4.7 million and 710,000 respectively.

Forecasts show the upper reaches of the Yangtze will see 10 percent more precipitation than normal years in September, but the precipitation in its middle and lower reaches, as well as the two major lakes along the watercourse- Dongting and Poyang, will be 20 to 50 percent less.

The water levels in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze and the two lakes will continue to be low. "The drought control situation remains grim," the ministry said.

Source: Chinadaily