'All dead': A devastated farmer in southern China longs for rain

A villager attempts to put out a brush fire with a mop during a drought in Xinyao village, Nanchang city, Jiangxi province, China, August 25, 2022. - Reuters

CHONGQING, China, Aug 26, 2022 (AFP): For almost a decade, farmer Qin Bin, 50, has toiled his plot, growing peaches and dragon fruits for sale to visiting tourists at his orchard on the outskirts of the Chinese megacity of Chongqing.

But this year's crop is devastated, another casualty of a blistering heatwave that has engulfed southern China in the country's hottest summer on record and subsumed half its land in drought.