The severe drought lingering over north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and certain parts of northeast China since this spring has been relieved after continuous rainfalls, said the China Meteorological Administration(CMA) on Monday.

Eastern Inner Mongolia and northeast China's Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces have received large rainfall since July 5. Sunday's monitoring showed that the drought in most parts of these regions had been eased or relieved, said Zhang Qiang, director of CMA's Climate Impact Assessment Division.

However, such areas were still in need of more rain as were the northeastern Inner Mongolia and the western Heilongjiang and Jilin, where drought would last for several more days, said Zhang.

The lasting drought has caused a forest fire at 1 p.m. Sunday in Huma County of Heilongjiang, according to CMA's National Satellite Meteorological Center.

The rainy season in Inner Mongolia and northeastern provinces usually began in late June, according to CMA's Zhang. Owing to higher temperatures and less precipitation over the same period since January, these regions were hit by one of the severest droughts in the past century.

According to report from the Central Meteorological Station, the above-mentioned regions will receive less rainfall on a year-on-year basis in the upcoming seven days so drought may come back.      

CMA forecast showed that the eastern part of northwest China and parts of northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region were still affected by medium level drought. Moderate rain is expected to fall in the eastern part of northwest China next week, relieving the drought in the area.

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2004)