A disaster of this magnitude was unforeseen in the prefecture, precedents absent in the living memory of local people. "When the rain didn't come last August and September we thought it might just be a few days late. When it had not arrived yet last November we became worried, and began to build water storage units," recalled Wu Shenghua. His department jump-started a survey on the water reserve in rural and urban areas as prelude for a response plan.

After verification and analysis of the data collected, the government grasped the size and intensity of the drought and its impact on every part of the region with the passage of each month. Relief efforts were designed accordingly. As the aridity deepened, people became increasingly testy. Fights over water resources flared up in the countryside, some involving big crowds. The heat was turned down after governments at all levels organized a variety of activities, including trucking water to the worst-affected communities.

Concerted Efforts

Shangela Village in Xichou County is a poor neighborhood of 46 households, each eking out a living on the rocky terrain for generations. Water is a luxury even in normal years: the nearest well was three kilometers away, and had drained to the bottom recently. The memory of water exploration excursions in the region 30 years ago were now faint, but Huang Zhengfa, age 46, led a group of villagers to hunt for new water sources.

They sniffed out possibilities in a lime stone cave that was merely 0.5 meters wide at the entrance, and made the precipitous climb downward. A man with a slight build was sent in, and after fumbling for five hours, returned with the good news that a river was flowing 260 meters underground.

When the general ecstasy subsided, the farmers realized they had no way of bringing the water up. Their shovels and chisels couldn't pierce through the 260-meter layer of rocks. So they approached the county's water management authority, which dispatched a drilling team to assist them. After a collaborative effort of more than 20 days, the water was channeled above ground to nourish 53 villages for some 6,000 people in the area.

Xie Siwen, 65, a former government employee, moved with his wife to his ancestral home in Dalongdong Village after retirement. He voluntarily participated in the community's water search in the drought, and after a new water source was discovered in the mountainous wilderness three kilometers away from the village, he offered to watch the pumps at night and oversee water allotment and sanitation during the day. In the county and the whole prefecture the water-scrounging campaign is hectic and encompasses nearly every man, woman and child. By the end of March Maguan County alone had found more than 40 water sources.

Xichou was the first in Wenshan to set up a water supply hotline. The government hired trucks and drivers to carry water to villages on demand. The cost varied according to the distance from water sources, but all users were subsidized, and the government absorbed the total cost for users in impoverished areas. This practice was later adopted by other parts of the prefecture.