The Three Gorges Reservoir discharges water into the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Yichang City, central China's Hubei Province, Aug 17, 2022. (Photo: CFP)

As of Sunday, reservoirs of the Yangtze River, China's longest one, have discharged 980 million cubic meters of water into the lower reaches to help fight the country's worst drought, China Media Group (CMG) reported, citing the Ministry of Water Resources.

The water discharge is a part of a more extensive water replenishment plan that aims to dispatch 1.48 billion cubic meters of water in total to the lower reaches of the river.

Since July, most areas of the Yangtze River basin have experienced high temperatures accompanied by 45 percent less rainfall than in previous years. According to the ministry, the Yangtze River reservoirs replenished 5.3 billion cubic meters of water in the middle and lower reaches of the river between August 1-15.

China's national observatory on Saturday renewed its orange alert for drought in many parts of southern China after witnessing the expanding drought-plagued area. (Photo: CGTN)

So far, drought has affected 2.46 million people and around 2.2 million hectares of farmland in the Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces and the Chongqing Municipality.

On Thursday, China's National Meteorological Center issued this year's first drought alert, which was upgraded to orange on Saturday. The country has a four-tier, color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

A scorching heatwave in June started the drought. A total of 262 weather stations recorded extreme high temperatures, the strongest in the past six decades during that period.

"The persistent abnormal atmospheric circulation caused continuous high temperature, just like the lid of a pressure cooker which holds hot air too tight to diffuse it out, making the temperature abnormally high and persistent," said Chen Lijuan, chief forecaster of the country's National Climate Center.

"We have to face the fact that similar heatwave will occur frequently in the future … it will become a new normal," Chen said.