Chinese Island Of Hainan Bears Brunt Of Extreme Drought - AFP

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An island on the edge of the vast Pacific, Hainan gets a large part of its rain during the typhoon season. The problem is, for two years now, there has not been a single typhoon, and global warming may be to blame.

"There's a lot of causes behind the drought," says a forecaster with the Hainan provincial meteorological bureau, surnamed Xing. "Global warming is one of them."

The Dongping reservoir in the highlands of central Hainan used to be a sizable man-made lake, providing ample water for thousands of sugar and rubber farmers. Now it is little more than a pit, with peasants standing and sitting aimlessly in clusters nearby, because there is little work for them to do in the fields.

It is the worst drought in half a century, and out of the island's eight million people, nearly one million have difficulty getting drinkable water. Hainan is just a tiny spot on the China map, but what it is experiencing now could be a harbinger of things to come for other and more populous parts of the country -- and of the world."

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http://www.terradaily.com/2005/050524030659.tapzi5vg.html