Severe drought leaves farmers with dying rice and communities running out of tap water in the Northeast.

Rice growers in nine districts of Yasothon province were losing their crops due to delayed rain. Many other farmers who had not started their first rice crop cultivation were waiting for rain.

The Chi River was the shallowest in a decade and backhoes were digging the riverbed to keep feeding local tap water production. The waterworks director of Maha Sarakham province said tap water production there could be in a crisis unless it rains within 20 days. Farmers were pumping water from the river into their paddies at the cost of communities’ tap water supply, the director said.

In Nakhon Phanom province, the level of the Mekong River unusually dropped to only 2.30 meters. Somkiat Prajumwong, secretary-general of the Office of National Water Resources, attributed the unnatural drop to maintenance at China’s Jinghong dam, the trial operation of the Xayaburi hydropower dam in Laos and low rainfall.

Source: TNA