Reuters. Rare drought hit some of China's farmlands and caused dried up crops to catch fire in Xinyao village, Nanchang city, Jiangxi’s provincial capital on Thursday (August 25).
Villagers were seen battling a bush fire in a field using wet mops.
Farmers are now assessing the damage a vicious and prolonged drought has had on their yields as the crucial autumn harvest approaches.
70-year old farmer Hu Baolin said his plants, including rapeseed oil and sesame, were far less developed compared to normal years, and his pomelos were just a third of their usual size.
Nearby wells were severely depleted, and a gaggle of geese milled around a pond that had completely dried up around 10 days ago.
Hu Baolin stood beside the sesame field, looking at the dried plants sorrowfully.
"Don't let people see it and think I brought you here on purpose. You can go anywhere you like (in this village), it's all the same.”
More than 70 days of extreme temperatures and low rainfall have wreaked havoc along the basin of the Yangtze, which supports more than 450 million people as well as a third of the country's crops.
