AUGUST 30, 2022:
China’s record heatwave is beginning to disappear, and farmers are assessing the damage caused by the lengthy dry spell.
Reuters says the Chinese government is urging its producers to replant or switch crops where they can. Over 70 days of extreme temperatures and low rainfall have hit the country’s crops hard. Rain is in the forecast over the next ten days, but farmers worry the heat has already done too much damage.
In an emergency notice, the ag ministry called on the country’s farmers to harvest and store rice and take action to strengthen potential grain growth in the weeks ahead. In parts of the country where drought has already done damage, the government is asking its farmers to switch to late-fall crops like sweet potatoes. However, experts say that won’t be an easy task because nearby wells have been severely depleted of water, and some ponds have disappeared.
AUGUST 29, 2022:
BEIJING (AP) — More than 100,000 people have been evacuated to safer areas as heavy rains bring flood risks to a region of southwest China that was devastated by heat and drought for most of the summer. Heavy rain is forecast for parts of Sichuan province and Chongqing city through at least Tuesday. Chongqing, a megacity built in a hilly area and including mountains and countryside, issued a flash flood warning. One village in Sichuan that had been suffering drought conditions recorded 7.4 inches of rain. Factories were able to operate with full power again as concerns eased over hydropower output, and the rain should help withering crops.
People walk along the dry riverbed of the Jialing River, a tributary of the Yangtze, in southwestern China’s Chongqing Municipality, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. The very landscape of Chongqing, a megacity on the Yangtze River, has been transformed by China’s worst heat wave since modern record-keeping began six decades ago, and an accompanying drought.
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein.
AUGUST 23, 2022:
BEIJING (AP) — With China’s biggest freshwater lake reduced to just 25% of its usual size by drought, work crews are digging trenches to keep water flowing to irrigate crops. The dramatic decline of water coverage in Poyang Lake in southeastern China otherwise had cut off irrigation channels in one of China’s key rice-growing regions. But state media report the crews are working only after dark due to the extreme daytime heat. High temperatures have sparked wildfires in southwest China, and factories have cut production as hydroelectric plants reduce their output. The drought and heat have wilted crops and shrunk rivers. This summer’s heat waves started earlier and have lasted longer than usual.
AUGUST 20, 2022:
LONGQUAN, China (AP) — Scorching heat during China’s driest summer (2022) in six decades has wilted crops and left farmers struggling. Hundreds of persimmon trees are wilted in Gan Bingdong’s greenhouse in southwestern China. A reservoir beside Gan’s farm has run dry, forcing him to pump groundwater. Some areas have declared the summer growing season a total loss. The national weather agency said drought conditions across China have increased significantly, from the densely populated east across central farming provinces west into eastern Tibet. The forecast called for no rain and high temperatures for at least three more days. Local authorities were ordered to use all available water sources to supply households and livestock.
Gan Bingdong walks through vegetable plots at his farm in Longquan village in southwestern China’s Chongqing Municipality, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. Drought conditions across a swathe of China from the densely populated east across central farming provinces into eastern Tibet have “significantly increased,” the national weather agency said Saturday. The forecast called for no rain and high temperatures for at least three more days from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces northwest of Shanghai, through Chongqing and Sichuan in the southwest to the eastern part of Tibet.
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein.
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