Drought has left 4.28 million people in China suffering from drinking water shortage, the country's drought relief authority said Monday.

A farmer looks anxiously on Monday at peanut crops that have been withered by a serious drought in Yantang village, the Yinjiang Tujia and Miao autonomous county in Southwest China's Guizhou province. [China Daily]

Hot temperatures and lack of rainfall that have persisted since July have resulted in drought in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu, Guizhou and Hunan, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said in a statement on its website.

As of July 31, a total of 63.34 million mu (4.22 million hectares) of arable land had been affected by the drought, the statement said. Some 3.88 million heads of livestock suffered from water shortage, it added.

The drought, which started in June, has damaged 550,200 hectares of crops in Guizhou Province accroding to the provincial civil affairs bureau.

By Monday, 39 counties and regions in Guizhou were suffering from severe drought, said Yu Junwei, spokesman for the Guizhou provincial meteorological bureau.

Yu said his bureau had launched a level-3 emergency response and further details about drought will be released on Tuesday.