Report: Drought in China’s north leaves 5 million people short of drinking water

October 13th, 2009 UNESCO: drought forces 100,000 Iraqis from homesPARIS — Not war but drought has forced more than 100,000 people in northern Iraq to abandon their homes since 2005, with 36,000 more on the verge of leaving, UNESCO said Tuesday. The four-year drought and excessive well pumping have led to the collapse of an ancient system of underground aqueducts, or karez, as they are known in Iraq.

September 3rd, 2009 Turkey says more water for Iraq, Syria is unlikelyANKARA, Turkey — A water rights battle over the historic Tigris and Euphrates rivers simmered Thursday, as Iraq and Syria appealed for increased water flows to cope with severe drought but Turkey said it was already too overstretched. Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Turkey's southeast region was also suffering from low rainfall and drought but the country was still releasing more water than it was legally obligated to its neighbors out of humanitarian concerns.

August 24th, 2009 STOCKHOLM - Participants at the World Water Week conference here have urged the governments to include the problem of water shortage in the negotiations on climate change. Access to drinking water has a significant impact on economy, health, agriculture and other spheres of life, they said.

August 23rd, 2009 BEIJING - China's anti-drought authority has urged for more efforts to fight drought in the north of the country that is affecting some 4.6 million people, and warned of a possible drought in the south. The drought in the north was threatening 8.67 million hectares of crops, the office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said Saturday.

August 20th, 2009 MEXICO CITY - More than three million farmers are reeling under drought in Mexico this year due to the El Nino weather phenomenon, officials said. The National Water Commission said some 3.5 million farmers are reeling under drought.

August 18th, 2009 UN says Kenya in desperate need of food aidKARIUNGA, Kenya — More than 1 million Kenyans affected by a prolonged drought are not getting the food aid they desperately need, the U.N.'s World Food Program said Tuesday. The agency already is providing emergency food aid to some 2.5 million people in this East African nation, but another 1.3 million still need help, said Gabrielle Menezes, a spokeswoman for WFP.

August 2nd, 2009 HYDERABAD - Facing the spectre of first drought in six years, the Andhra Pradesh government is gearing up to tackle the situation and plans to come out with a contingency plan within a week. Admitting that the situation is "serious" in some districts, Finance Minister K.

July 29th, 2009 Water pollution sickens thousands in north ChinaBEIJING — Contaminated drinking water has sickened more than 2,600 people in northern China, including 59 who were hospitalized with fevers, diarrhea, stomach aches and vomiting, state media reported Wednesday. Heavy rains caused contaminants to seep into a water supply in Chifeng city in Inner Mongolia, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, without saying what the contaminants were.

July 20th, 2009 Drinking binge at banquet kills Chinese officialBEIJING — One Chinese official is dead and another is in a coma after bouts of excessive drinking, state media said Monday in a report highlighting the dangers of a drinking culture connected with government and business work. Jin Guoqing, a district deputy director of water resources in Wuhan, the capital of central Hubei province, fell unconscious while entertaining guests at an official banquet last week and died on the way to the hospital, the official China Daily said.

April 21st, 2009 YINCHUAN - A five-month drought has left 164,000 people in northwest China's Ningxia Hui region short of drinking water, an official said Tuesday. The drought has hit 11 counties and districts in the central part of the region, including Zhongning, Haiyuan and Yuanzhou, with a total population of 1.47 million, said Li Kewen, vice director of the regional flood control and drought relief headquarters.

February 22nd, 2009 BEIJING - Carbolic acid spilled into a river from a chemical plant has forced the suspension of tap water supplies to more than one million people in China's eastern city of Yancheng, officials said Saturday. The privately owned Biaoxin Chemical Company was found illegally discharging waste water into a river in Jiangsu Province, Xue Yu, secretary-general of the city administration, said.

February 7th, 2009 BEIJING - China will divert water from its two longest rivers to irrigate the drought-hit areas in the country's north, an official said. Water from the country's longest river, the Yangtze River, will be diverted to the northern areas of east China's Jiangsu province as temperature rises and water demand grows, said Zhang Zhitong, deputy chief of the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) flood control and drought relief office.

February 5th, 2009 BEIJING - China's government Friday raised the emergency status in drought-stricken regions to the highest level for the first time, as lack of rain threatens the harvests on more than 10 million hectares of farming land. Fifteen provinces, including Anhui and Henan as well as the region along the Yellow River, are hit by the worst drought in half a century, the China Daily newspaper said.

February 4th, 2009 BEIJING - Chinese officials Thursday declared a state of emergency in several regions affected by a severe drought in northern China. About four million people in eight provinces did not have sufficient water supplies, state media said, quoting the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief.

January 12th, 2009 GUANGZHOU - About 160 boats were stranded in a river in south China's Guangdong province after a drought lowered the water to a level where navigation was not possible. The boats ran aground in the Beijiang river after levels receded by more than three meters, blocking the waterway.