Continuous severe drought over the past month has left more than 1.5 million people short of drinking water and thousands of hectares of cropland damaged in south and central China.

Chongqing, a city nicknamed "Stove" because of its high temperatures in summer, has reported a lingering autumn drought. More than 500,000 local residents have run short of drinking water, said Chongqing Municipal Government spokesman Wen Tianping.

Wen said 31 districts and counties had reported drought and as many as 414,000 hectares of cropland in Chongqing had been affected.

"Water storage in the city's water conservancy project has reported a 10-percent drop from mid-August, a year-on-year 4.5 percent decrease," he said.

In eastern Jiangxi Province, more than 370,000 hectares of cropland is suffering from the drought in mid-September, according to statistics of Jiangxi Provincial Flooding and Drought Relief Headquarters.

More than 1,120 reservoirs and 2,100 creeks and rivers have run dry in drought-hit central Hunan Province, where total rainfall since January has dropped 11.4 percent year on year.

More than 1.02 million people in Hunan have difficulties in getting drinking water.

Local government has turned to inducing artificial precipitation to relieve drought. According to Hunan Meteorological Bureau, a total of 2,335 cloud-seeding rockets had been used in the province to increase the chances of rain since August.

(Xinhua News Agency September 18, 2009)