A farmer wades through what water remains in the Neijing River, near the city of Honghu in central China's Hubei Province May 30, 2011. Almost 35 million people across five provinces on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze have been affected to different degrees by the drought, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs said last week. That number includes 4.2 million who have difficulty getting drinkable water. Direct economic losses are nearing 15 billion yuan ($2.3 billion), it said. Farmers said they would need generous rainfall in coming weeks, or the first of their two annual rice crops could wither and die, and more of the thousands of fish and crab farms could lose all their stock. REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA - Tags: ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY BUSINESS)