Severe drought continues to expand in China: official

Farmers weed a field in Jianjiang Village of Huaiqun Township in Luocheng County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, March 30, 2010. Local farmers took advantage of the favorable rainy weather to press on with planting to minimize their economic losses due to the drought. (Xinhua/Dong Yaorong)

BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A total of 116 million mu (about 7.73 million hectares) of arable land has been affected by the expanding drought in China as of Tuesday, said Liu Ning, vice minister of water resources.

The drought has left 24.25 million people and 15.84 million farm animals short of water, 80 percent of which are from China's southwestern regions, he said at a press conference here Wednesday.

As of the end of 2008, China had about 1.83 billion mu of arable land.