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Both drought and flood have brought hardship and loss to far-flung regions of China.

Drought in the provinces of Guizhou and Hunan was aggravated by the lowest July rainfall since 1951, according to Xinhua News, which cited the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).

Xinhua said that 1.8 million people were short of drinking water in Guizhou, and that drought had affected about 550,000 hectares (1.36 million acres) of crops. Economic loss was pegged at 1.82 billion yuan (about $283 million).

Nationwide, the water shortage owing to drought reached 4.28 people country’s drought relief authority said on Monday. Inner Mongolia, Ningxia Hui and Gansu, together with Guizhou and Hunan, have been hit by persistent above-normal temperature and below-normal rainfall, according to the authority.

China, as a whole, had average rainfall 8.7 percent below normal and average temperature 0.7 degree C (1.3 degrees F) above normal in July, the CMA report showed.

Meanwhile, it was flooding rain, not drought, that hit Yichang, Hubei, Monday and Tuesday, Xinhua reported. Downpours led to 1,000 people being evacuated. Crops on almost 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) were inundated, and more than 300 homes were damaged in this central China site.

In Shaanxi province, 5,000 people had to be evacuated following flooding rain, Xinhua reported on Tuesday. Three workers at a nature reserve in Hanzhong were missing after apparently being swept away. Shaanxi is in northwest China.

Inner Mongolia has also suffered recent flooding rain. Last week, Tropical Storm Nock-Ten lashed tropical Hainan Island with high winds and torrential rain.