Farmer Zhang Jiatan crouches in his dried up fish pond on Saturday in Liuhe District of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Many fish ponds and rice fields in the city’s suburban areas have dried up due to a heat wave in the past few weeks. (Photo: Xinhua)

Minor droughts affected parts of the country in the past six months, according to the China Meteorological Administration.
The droughts have affected 15 million hectares of farmland across the country, an improvement over previous years, said Dong Wenjie, director of the National Climate Center under the meteorological administration.
Though it is relatively minor, the drought still wrecked havoc in southern China from last autumn through winter and into the spring.
 Yunnan Province in southwestern China reported the most serious spring drought in the country.
Drought now threatens northwestern parts of China, the middle parts of north China, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the middle and eastern parts of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the eastern part of Heilongjiang Province.