Six million people in Chongqing could be facing severe water shortages by the beginning of May due to persistent drought along the Yangtze River, according to a local meteorological expert.

"The city will be lacking at least 500 million cubic meters of drinking and irrigation water and about six million people will be thirsty," said a local meteorologist on condition of anonymity.

Official figures show that the amount of water stored in Chongqing's reservoirs is around 1.17 billion cubic meters, less than half the normal storage.

The drought has left 1.5 million people and nearly 1 million livestock short of drinking water in 18 districts and counties.

In the worst-hit areas in the central and western parts of Chongqing, water supply is only 10 percent of demand, according to the municipal flood prevention and drought relief office.

About 1,600 people in two villages of Yubei district are relying solely on water wagons for supply of drinking water. While several other villages have rationed water and are seeking alternative sources to tackle the crisis.

Meteorologists have largely blamed a lack of rainfall for the drought.

"The central and western areas of the city had 30 to 80 percent less rain in February than normal and the occasional drizzle was no remedy to the thirsty land that had cracked following the severe drought of last summer," said Ma Li, vice director of the municipal meteorological bureau.

"Most parts of Chongqing and neighboring Sichuan Province have experienced little rain in spring, so there is hardly any chance to ease the drought before the flood season starts in May," he said.

After rainfall on Tuesday, the water level of the Chongqing section of the Yangtze River rose by 29 centimeters on Wednesday, a change that meteorological experts described as relatively insignificant.

The water level of the Yangtze in Chongqing was 159.75 meters on Wednesday, still 45 centimeters below the 160.2-meter level, which is regarded as the barometer for alarm, according to the municipal navigation bureau.

Experts believe the drought is likely to continue in the southwestern municipality throughout March.

The previous day, the Chongqing section of the Yangtze had been measured at a record low of 159.46 meters.

Meanwhile, the Jialing River, a major tributary on the upper Yangtze, was also running dry with Tuesday's water level dropping to a record low of around 172 meters. Its water flow has slowed to around 60 cubic meters per second, according to the local hydrological station.

The Shapingba Waterworks, one of the city's largest water suppliers in Shapingba where a cluster of colleges and universities are located, is suffering serious water shortages with only one of its 10 pipes used to pump water from the Yangtze still below the water surface and in operation.

One official with the municipal hydrological bureau pointed a finger to a glut of power generating facilities that store water in Yangtze's upper reaches. "But it won't be easy to ask them to discharge water and solve the supply bottleneck," said Guan Xuewen, deputy head of the bureau.

According to Guan, there are several hundred power stations in the upper reaches and the small ones do not even report to the flood prevention and drought relief authorities for water storage and discharging.

"On the other hand, reservoirs are under the jurisdiction of the water resources authorities and power stations come under the power administration so there is not one watchdog to guarantee the rational allocation of water resources," he said.

The declining water level has played havoc with navigation and a cargo ship carrying 1,400 tons of timber was stranded on Sunday close to Chongqing's Xingang port. The salvage operation lasted five hours.

On Monday, the municipal maritime bureau suspended navigation in some areas between 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. for surveying and dredging.

"Dwindling water reserves are also threatening the Yangtze ecology," said Wu Dengming, an environmentalist. "It's harder for fish to survive as the reduced water flow is affecting the river's capacity to dilute pollutants."

(Xinhua News Agency March 1, 2007)