Approximately 300 million Chinese rural residents, or one third of the total rural population in the country, drink unsafe water, a senior official said Wednesday.

Statistics show that among the 300 million people, 63 million drink high-fluorin water, 2 million drink high-arsenic water, 38 million drink bitter and salty water, 190 million drink water with excessive contents of harmful substances, and in addition, 11 million people in snail fever-affected areas drinking unsafe water, the official said.

Furthermore, close to 22 million people in 318 cities have reported water shortage annually in the past five years due to droughts, said E Jingping, vice minister of water resources, at an on-going national conference on flood control and drought relief held in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

"It's the top priority of our drought relief work to ensure safe drinking water and safeguard people's health," said E, also secretary-general of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

Currently, about 400 out of 660 Chinese cities lack water and 136 have reported severe water shortages.

In addition, half of Chinese cities have polluted underground water.

According to E, China will increase its annual water supply capacity by 40 billion cubic meters by 2010, with 16 billion in cities.

The country will try to solve the problem of unsafe drinking water for 100 million rural residents in the next five years, E said.

Source: Xinhua