BEIJING: Nearly five million Chinese are unable to get enough drinking water because of a series of droughts caused by “abnormally high” temperatures, state media said on Sunday.

Crucially in a nation which still relies on agriculture for the majority of its people, the drought is also cutting off sufficient water supplies for 2.5 million livestock, the Xinhua news agency reported.

One of the worst hit regions is Shandong province in east China, which is China's second-most populous with 92 million and one of the nation's main grain producers, according to the agency.

Xinhua quoted statistics from Shandong Provincial Meteorological Observatory that from September to February, the province received just 51.4 millimetres of rain, down 80 per cent from a year earlier.—AFP