More than a million people in one of China's biggest inland cities are facing water shortages after the level of the Yangtze river dropped to near historic lows, local authorities said Thursday. An official of the water agency for Chongqing, home to six million people, said the city had sounded alarm bells after the Yangtze reached its third-lowest level on record in late February.
The water level in the Jialing river, which flows into the Yangtze near Chongqing, also fell to a historic low on February 26, Yan Yonghui told AFP.
Access to water could become a problem for 1.2 million people in Chongqing if the water level continued to fall, said Yan.
"But the situation had eased a lot after hydropower stations in neighbouring Sichuan province started to discharge water at our request on March 3," Yan said.
"Now the water level is more than one metre (yard) above intakes."
Chongqing, one of four Chinese municipalities directly under the central government, has a population of 30.6 million if the residents of surrounding rural areas are also taken into account.
