WSJ/ChinaFotoPress/Zuma Press

A drought in southwest China has left approximately 24 million people without sufficient drinking water, according to a senior official in the Communist government.

Liu Ning, in charge of water resources, confirmed to reporters that the drought is likely to last well into May, perhaps early June. In the meantime, both the local citizenry and global consumers could suffer.

The drought has raised fears of inflationary pressures as the water shortage threatens to drive up prices for rice and other agricultural products. It has also drawn attention from environmentalists who wonder to what extent disruptions from China’s massive construction of hydroelectric dams and reservoirs have contributed to the water shortages.

“This drought is the worst in a century, and it’s another demonstration that our water supply system is on a very tight balance,” Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a nongovernmental organization in Beijing, said in an interview Wednesday.

Mr. Ma said paper mills have recently planted crops of eucalyptus, rubber trees and other non-local species, reducing native forest areas that can hold excess water and release it in the dry season. “Logging, deforestation and general eco-degradation in that region … has weakened the ecological capability to regulate water.”

Liu, meanwhile, insists unnecessary suffering is the result of inadequate irrigation and water storage facilities rather than the government’s public works projects.

While the drought is supposedly concentrated in the southwest where very little grain is harvested, even the government’s top man for water concedes that the crisis could spread into the north. In fact, Liu admits that there are already signs of drought in the northern wheat-growing areas.

You can head over to the Wall Street Journal for more pictures, including one showing children waiting in line to get bottled water. The Communist government in Beijing says people in the worst-hit areas may end up having to move away if the situation gets any worse. Sad.