CHONGQING, China—As the tinder-dry countryside along China’s Yangtze river basin withers under a heat wave that has lasted more than two months, veteran farmer Chen Xiaohua recalled the last severe drought to hit his crops more than 60 years ago.
“This year is drier than 1960,” said Chen, 68, from his plot of land in the village of Fuyuan in the rugged rural fringes of the Chongqing region in China’s southwest. “The temperature is higher.”
