East China's Jiangxi Province on Wednesday raised its drought emergency response from Level IV to Level Ⅲ starting from 10 a.m. as the drought continues.

China has a four-level emergency response system for disaster relief, with Level IV being the lowest and Level I the highest.

From July 15 to 5 p.m. of Tuesday, unrelenting drought had left nearly 3 million people from 104 counties and districts in the province affected. A total of 365,300 hectares of crops were damaged.

As of 4 p.m. on Tuesday, the province had sent more than 1.5 million people to fight against the drought. Drought-resistant facilities have also been allocated to the affected areas, helping reduce losses of cash crops by 3.2 billion yuan (about $465.9 million U.S. dollars) and losses of grain by about 3.26 billion yuan.

(Cover image: Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province is facing drought. /CFP)

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