Torrential rain forecast for parts of drought-hit China

BEIJING: Teams of drillers are building wells to fight a devastating drought sweeping parts of China, while a southwestern region that saw scorching temperatures this month is now on alert for flooding.

A drill team in Dashan village near Jiujiang city in the country's central Jiangxi province, is working 15-hour days to build a well there. In another nearby village, a 72-year-old man scoured the fields for ears of rice left over from the paddy harvester to take home and feed to his chickens.

"Sesame, corn, sweet potatoes, cotton in the drylands are all dried up," he said, adding that only the rice fields could be filled with water from nearby reservoirs, "so they just filled them with a little bit of water and it was a little bit better."