Some 20 million Chinese are have been hit by the longest drought in a century, with drinking water in residential homes being turned on for only a few hours per day, Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

The hardest hit areas are in China's south and west provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Qinghai. In the province of Yunnan, near the borders of Laos and Vietnam, residents have not seen any precipitation for five months.

Production facilities that use large amounts of water have been closed and experts believe the situation in the region will only become worse as farmers are preparing for spring planting. Some 870,000 head of livestock are also suffering from the lack of drinking water.

BEIJING, March 17 (RIA Novosti)