China's central finance has allocated 86 million yuan ($12.6 million) to aid people in areas hit by severe drought and typhoon, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs Thursday.

The disaster-relief fund will be used to buy food and water for people in drought-hit areas and help with relocation of people and reconstruction of damaged houses in typhoon-devastated places, it says.

The money will be forwarded to Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and provinces of Hunan, Guizhou and Guangdong.

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

In southern Guangdong Province, typhoon Koppu, the 15th this year, forced more than 110,000 people to leave their homes and destroyed thousands of houses.

(Xinhua News Agency September 25, 2009)