Hundreds of millions of people continue to struggle without regular access to drinking water, drought-stricken China is now turning to desalinated sea water in a bid to reverse the crisis, the government said earlier this week.

Apart from widespread drought, factories have ignored pollution hazards and dumped toxic industrial waste into rivers and lakes in China, home to one-fifth of the world's population but only 7 per cent of its water resources, reports Reuters.

"China is expected to desalinate 800,000 to 1 million cubic metres of sea water per day and use 55 billion cubic metres annually by 2010," the State Development and Reform Commission said, detailing China's ninth five-year plan.

China is hoping to build on the120,000 cubic metres of sea water that it desalinated per day last year.

But desalination plants zap energy supplies and it was not made immediately clear by state officials how China, which is also desperately short of fuel, plans to source the required energy supplies.

The situation is tense as more than 600 medium- and large-sized cities in China were now suffering "serious water shortages", Water Resources Minister Wang Shucheng said this month.

China is investing billions in a project to transfer water from its lush south to the arid north.
The so-called western route of the project could involve harnessing rivers cascading from the Tibetan highlands in the Himalayas to quench the thirst of Qinghai province and other poor western areas.

But Wang said the proposed system of tunnels stretching 300 km (190 miles), and costing more than the US$25 billion Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric mega-project, was unnecessary, unscientific and not feasible.