More than 50 million people across a large swathe of southwest China have been hit by the worst drought in a century. It started in November and forecasters see no signs of the drought abating in the near future.

Over 16 million people and 11 million livestock are short of drinking water, while more than 4 million hectares of farmland is affected and an estimated million hectares will yield no harvest this year.

Most rivers in southwest China have shrunk to between 30 and 80 percent of their normal volume and some have completely dried up, according to official figures from China.

The Yunnan province has been hit the hardest, with 8 million people short of water and over 2 million hectares of farmland lacking water.

Poor rainfall and unseasonably high temperatures are responsible for the calamity, the official Xinhua news agency said.