The Yangtze River is suffering from a severe drought that has caused water shortages for 1.5 million people and disrupted shipping in Chongqing, authorities said yesterday.

Reservoirs in the southwestern municipality have dropped to half their normal level, said officials at the city's flood control and drought relief office.

The drought has also affected 104,000 hectares of farmland and left nearly 1 million heads of livestock short of water.

A spokesman for the Shapingba Waterworks, one of Chongqing's main drinking water suppliers, said that only one of its 10 pipes used to pump water from the Yangtze remained below the river's surface and was still in operation.

"If the water levels in the Yangtze and its upper tributary, the Jialing River, continue to decline, we'll face a real crisis," he said.

The municipal drought control authority has sent water wagons to the hardest-hit areas to supply people and livestock and has told local governments to build up reserves.

Some 1,600 people in two villages were totally dependent on the wagon for drinking water.

Lack of rain

The local hydrological bureau said water levels in the Yangtze and Jialing rivers declined sharply in recent weeks due to a lack of rainfall. The dry spell follows last summer's severe drought, which forced tens of thousands of farmers to leave home to make a living. Many ended up picking cotton in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

On Sunday, the water level at one hydrological station in Chongqing measured 158.43 meters, only 35 centimeters higher than the record low reported in 1987, said a bureau spokesman surnamed Wang.

Wang blamed a glut of power plants along the Yangtze's upper reaches for the decline in water levels.

The declining water level in Chongqing has also caused problems for river navigation, causing a dozen vessels to run aground. Among them, a cargo ship carrying 1,400 tons of timber was stranded on Sunday near Chongqing's Xinggang Port. The salvage operation lasted five hours.

"The Chongqing section of the Yangtze is 0.47 meters below zero level, while 0.5 meters above zero level is required for safe shipping," said Xia Shipeng, an official with the Chongqing Maritime Safety Administration.

The maritime bureau suspended navigation in the area yesterday for two hours for surveying and dredging.

"The Yangtze suffers from drought almost every spring, but this year's situation is worse than normal," said a sailor.

The Chongqing municipal flood control and drought relief office said it planned to ease the dry spell by crating artificial rainfall.

The office predicted the drought would last until the rainy season begins in May, but will return in the middle of summer.