Faced with the worst drought in decades, China is mobilising for battle in the most literal sense, including rolling out the heavy artillery, AP reported.
Troops have fired nearly 2,400 artillery shells and over 400 rockets laden with cloud-seeding chemicals to alleviate water scarcity that has hit over four million people in seven provinces where an emergency is in place.
The special rain-making effort followed instructions from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to officials in drought-hit areas to place "top priority" on relief work as agricultural stability concerns China's bid to revive its economy.
Local weather-control officials had fired a total of 2,392 artillery shells and launched 409 rockets in 127 cloud-seeding operations by Saturday night, according to a statement on the the hina Meteorological Administration website.
Rain-enhancing practices were adopted in such drought-hit provincial regions as Henan, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hubei and Anhui, it said.
In central China's Henan, artificial precipitation brought on average 0.5 millimetres of rainfall to 17 counties and cities. The province, a major wheat-producing area, is suffering the worst drought in half a century.
Parts of the artificially moistened provinces and north China's Hebei Province saw one to five millimetres of rain from yesterday to this morning, the National Meteorological Centre (NMC) reported.
China has declared the highest level of emergency in response to the drought that began to hit most parts of northern China in November, Xinhua news agency reported.
Drought had affected 10.7 million hectares of crops, 4.37 million people and 2.1 million heads of livestock across the country as of Thursday. Apart from launching artificial means to induce rains, China has allocated about 12.69 billion US dollars as subsidies to farmers.
In addition, Beijing has decided to earmark 400 million yuan to local governments for drought relief.
Meanwhile, premier Wen said the fight against drought has to do not only with the safety of grain supply but also with the country's efforts to stimulate domestic demand.
Stating this during a visit to central China's drought-hit Henan Province yesterday and today, the senior Communist Party leader described the ongoing anti-drought campaign of the government as a "very difficult task."
"It's of vital significance to the overall economy to boost steady growth of grain production and farmers' income" as China is in a key stage to cope with the global financial crisis, he said.
...