Drought-plagued China has used an arsenal of rockets, artillery and aircraft to seed clouds and produce enough artificial rain to fill one of the country's biggest rivers over four times, according to Xinhua News Agency on Sunday.

China has created "the world's leading force" in artificially inducing rain to relieve droughts and fight fires, the official news agency said, citing the National Meteorological Bureau.

"Its aircraft alone have undertaken enough missions to fill Yellow River, the country's second longest river, in the past five years," it said.

Engineers "seed" clouds by burning chemicals such as silver iodide to induce rain to ease droughts, prevent hail and help extinguish fires, Xinhua said.

Cloud seeding helped put out three major forest fires that raged in north and northeast China for 10 days before they were subdued on Friday. And rain was induced in Beijing in early May to help cleanse the capital after a series of sandstorms.

In 2,840 flights from 2001 to 2005, cloud seeding by aircraft brought down 210 billion cubic meters of water over an area making up nearly a third of China's territory, a bureau official said.

The scheme employed more than 3,000 people with an arsenal of 7,000 cannon and 4,687 rocket launchers, the official told a meeting in Jinan, capital of the eastern province of Shandong.

(Xinhua News Agency June 5, 2006)