A photo taken on August 26, 2009 shows parched paddy field in Macha village of Yongshun County, in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of central China's Hunan Province. [Photo: Xinhua]

A severe drought is plaguing central China's Hunan province where persistent scorching weather and scant rainfall have caused rivers, ponds and reservoirs to dry up. At least 885,000 local people are having difficulty accessing drinking water, Xinhuanet.com reported on Thursday.

The drought led to extensive damage to crops in the western part of Hunan, including the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Zhangjiajie and Huaihua cities.

In the heavily agricultural Cili county of Zhangjiajie, the harvest of corn is less then 30 percent of normal years while rice crops are almost completely parched. In the Gaofeng Tujia township, there has been little rainfall since July 5.

County authorities were cited in the report as saying that rice is predicted to be reduced by 61 million kilograms in the county and other crops by around 60 million kilograms.

A reservoir, which used to hold 800,000 cubic meters of water for farm irrigation, recently dried up in a village in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture.

In total, 208 rivers and streams, 92 reservoirs and 1018 ponds in the prefecture have dried up, forcing local residents to fetch water from long distances.

The prefecture authority has mobilized machinery and trucks to transport water to the hardest-hit areas. Meanwhile, measures have been taken to enhance the efficiency of irrigation.

The province received just 36 millimeters of rainfall in August, 70 percent less than the year-on-year average, China News Service reported.

The provincial meteorological department forecasts that there will be continuous hot weather in the coming days with no significant rainfall. In some cases, temperatures could reach 40 degrees Celsius.