HAIKOU, March 2(Xinhuanet)-- A total of 554,800 rural residents in south China's Hainan Province are almost without drinkable water as a rare drought maintains its hold on this island province.

Statistics provided by the provincial drought relief office show that by late February, 126,600 head of large livestock were also suffering from lack of water. The severe drought has also threatened 196,200 hectares of crops-- about half the province's total arable land.

An official with the provincial drought relief office said 18 cities and counties of the province were suffering drought, with Wenchang, Qionghai, Wanning, Lingshui and Dunchang the worst hit.

Reservoirs in the province hold just 34.57 percent of the waterfor a normal year, and 64 local rivers have run dry. The drought has also caused seawater to flow eight km upstream along the Wanquan River, called the mother river of Hainan.

The Wanquan River originates from Mount Wuzhi in southern Hainan Island, flows northeastwardly to reach the eastern coast, and eventually empties into South China Sea at Bo'ao, the permanent venue of Forum of Asia.

The provincial meteorological observatory forecasts that scarcerainfall will continue in the province until May and reservoirs levels will keep dropping.

The severe drought in Hainan Island, where agriculture and tourism are the two main industries, has drawn the attention of the central and provincial government authorities.

On Tuesday, Hainan Province took a set of measures to control drought from getting worse, including limiting daily water usage for each urban dweller to less than 100 liters.

So far, some 20 million yuan(about 2.41 million US dollars), including 8 million yuan(963,850 dollars) from the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters and the Chinese Ministry of Finance, has been allotted to different cities and counties of Hainan to support rainfall-increasing operations such as cloud seeding.

Several rounds of cloud seeding have been carried out in a dozen cities and counties since Feb. 27, but the effect was limited, said local sources.

On that day, rockets were used in 14 rainfall producing operations in 10 cities and counties, but there were just moderaterains in three cities and drizzle in the rest.

Tian Yitang, deputy director of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, led a team and inspected the drought that began last September. He urged local officials to be well prepared for combating a major and prolonged drought.