A serious drought in at least eight Chinese provinces is threatening large crop-growing areas and leaving nearly 4 million people without proper drinking water, the government said Thursday.

The Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters posted a notice on its Web site calling it a drought "rarely seen in history." President Hu Jintao had called on provincial officials to fight the drought and ensure that there is a summer grain harvest, the notice said.

China suffers from an uneven distribution of its water resources. Weather patterns in the arid（干旱的、贫瘠的、荒芜的、草木不生的） north and flood-prone south cost the government tens of millions of dollars in lost productivity each year.

The latest drought began in November and has affected 24 million acres (9.73 million hectares) of crops, one-third of them seriously, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Most of the hardest-hit provinces were in northern China, with several in the east.

In recent days, news broadcasts have shown dry, cracked farm fields and crops withering in the ground.

Almost half of the wheat-growing areas in the eight provinces — Hebei, Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi and Gansu — were threatened, Xinhua said, while nearly 4 million people lacked proper drinking water.

The official China Daily newspaper said this was the worst drought in Henan since 1951 and that the province, a major supplier of winter wheat, had gone 105 consecutive days without rain.

But some relief may be in sight. Weather forecasts calls for rain and snow in some of the stricken areas beginning Saturday.