AP PHOTOS: Drought changes scenery inside southwest China

AP PHOTOS: Drought changes scenery inside southwest China

CHONGQING, China (AP) — River bottoms reduced to cracked world attract the curious, some taking selfies on the sun-baked expanse exposed by the receding waters. Farmers lament their yellowed rice stalks, their famed heated sprinkle plants bereft of almost all fruit, their arid reservoirs.

The extremely scenery of Chongqing, a megacity that excessively takes inside surrounding farmland accompanied by every one one other accompanied by precipitous accompanied by every one one other accompanied by picturesque mountains, has been transformed by an unusually lengthy accompanied by every one one other accompanied by great hotness wave accompanied by every one one other accompanied by an accompanying drought.

Chinese meteorologists are calling it the nation's strongest hotness wave since record keeping began inside 1961, based on its intensity, geographic area accompanied by every one one other accompanied by duration. Now into its third month, it has surpassed the foregoing record of 61 days inside 2013. Temperatures are topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) inside cities accompanied by every one one other accompanied by villages across southern China. Chongqing inside the southwest has been hit mostly hard.

At Longquan village inside the rolling hills south of urban Chongqing, a farmer walks across cracked mire at the foot of a inhabitants reservoir that was on one instance filled of water. The reservoir's retaining fence sprang a leak a few months ago, accompanied by every one one other accompanied by accompanied by the hotness accompanied by every one one other accompanied by drought, only a puddle a few meters (yards) across remains.

To the north, Li Siming walks into with every one other accompanied by not here of his fields yellowing rice plants inside Mu'er town while the sound of jets landing at a nearby airfield echoed off the hillsides. With the inside attendance accompanied by limited, the communal aqua that would normally go to his rice crops was diverted to fruit orchards instead.

"We pray to the god, nevertheless the deity wouldn't rain. We inquire the local government, nevertheless the management wouldn't inside attendance accompanied by us water," Li said.

He is using costly tap aqua to irrigate his fields. He estimates his harvest from trio hectares of land will exist 400 kilograms of rice, less than a third of his usual one. Farmers have moved forward the harvest by fifty per cent of a month so the crops won't arid up, nevertheless earlier to the grains are completely developed.

A strong high-pressure ridge parked over western Russia is behind the hotness waves inside both China accompanied by every one one other accompanied by Europe this summer. The extreme hotness is probable connected to human-caused climate alter — though scientists have yet to do the calculations accompanied by every one one other accompanied by computer simulations to speak that for certain.

The Jialing River, a tributary of the Yangtze, has shrunk inside places to less than fifty per cent of the wideness of its strait into with every one other accompanied by not here of the heart of Chongqing. Residents accompanied by every one one other accompanied by visitors build their way across boulders on the exposed riverbed to constitute for selfies accompanied by every one one other accompanied by look at the residual sprint of water. At dusk, a squad of uniformed officers uses megaphones to order the throngs spine to the higher ground of an adjacent promenade.

Along the Yangtze, which excessively runs into with every one other accompanied by not here of downtown Chongqing, families accompanied by every one one other accompanied by children amuse oneself inside the shallow aqua near the base of an exposed bridge support column. Muddy streaks down the pillar additional than 8 meters (25 feet) above their heads mark foregoing watercourse levels. As darkness falls, a woman, illuminated by her smartphone, sits on a rocky outcropping that would normally exist submerged inside the centre of the river.

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Associated Press video manufacturer Olivia Zhang contributed to this report.

AP PHOTOS: Drought changes scenery inside southwest China