China drought causing havoc with Yangtze River shipping

The government said Thursday that a prolonged dry spell has left water flows dangerously low along the Yangtze.

Dozens of emergency teams have been deployed along the river's middle reaches to help prevent accidents, said a notice on the government's website. It said water levels at some measuring stations had dropped to record low levels.

Although the 6,300 kilometer (3,900-mile) Yangtze is better known for its summer seasonal flooding, a severe drought in northern and eastern China has sharply reduced runoff into the river, which stretches from far western Qinghai to China's Pacific coast.

The prolonged dry spell has stunted the winter wheat crop, sapped hydroelectricity production and threatened drinking water supplies for at least 3 million people. Much of vast Poyang lake, a wetland that often absorbs flood waters during the typhoon season, is now a flat plain of dust.

The problem is adding urgency to plans announced earlier this week to spend billions of dollars to dredge much deeper channels through the lower reaches of the heavily silted waterway — a crucial step in an effort to develop major inland ports to handle growing cargo volume as manufacturers shift production further inland and away from heavily developed coastal regions.

Shanghai itself, at the mouth of the Yangtze, has long had to conduct dredging operations to keep its ports accessible, and in recent years constructed a new, deep water port on an offshore island to help meet soaring cargo transport demand in the region.

State run media report that neighboring Jiangsu province, just upriver, and the Ministry of Transport plan to spent 18 billion yuan (US$2.7 billion) on deepening navigation channels along the lower Yangtze to enable 50,000-ton vessels, such as bulk freighters, to travel as far as the provincial capital, Nanjing.

But Wuhan and Chongqing, major cities further inland, face even larger hurdles: The water level at Hankou, in Wuhan, was only 2.87 meters (9.4 feet) as of Wednesday, below its dry-season average level of 4 meters.

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