Piers are seen near the dried riverbed exposed after the water level dropped in the Yangtze River in Yunyang county in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. Unusually high temperatures and a prolonged drought are affecting large swaths of China, reducing crop yields and drinking water supplies.
A dried riverbed is exposed after the water level dropped in the Yangtze River in Yunyang county in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.
Cracks in dried mud are seen on a portion of the dry riverbed of the Jialing River in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality. Ships crept down the middle of the Yangtze after the driest summer in six decades left one of the mightiest rivers shrunk to barely half its normal width and set off a scramble to contain damage to a weak economy in a politically sensitive year.
A thermometer shows a temperature of nearly 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) in the shade before midday in Longquan village in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality.
Rocks are exposed on the dry riverbed of the Jialing River in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality.
Gan Bingdong stands near a pump sitting in the remaining water of a community reservoir near his farm that ran nearly empty after its retaining wall started to leak and hot weather and drought conditions accelerated the loss of water, in Longquan village in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality.
A farmer stands above a deep crack in the dried mud of an earthen embankment in his rice fields on the outskirts of Chongqing, China. The government says it will try to protect China's grain harvest from record-setting drought by using chemicals to generate rain, while factories in the southwest waited Sunday to see whether they might be shut down for another week due to shortages of water to generate hydropower.
Rice plants that are turning yellow in color sway in the breeze in a farm field on the outskirts of Chongqing, China.
A chili pepper sits on a dying plant at the farm of Gan Bingdong in Longquan village in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality.
In this aerial photo, a community reservoir that ran nearly empty after its retaining wall started to leak and hot weather and drought conditions accelerated the loss of water is seen in Longquan village in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality.
