More than 6 million people in southwest China's Yunnan Province faced water shortages as a lingering drought continued to worsen, provincial government officials said on March 3.

"The number of people affected is expected to hit 10 million by May," said Qin Guangrong, Governor of Yunnan Province.

The drought has also affected about 2.1 million hectares of crops, and threatened the water supply for more than 3.6 million livestock in the southwestern province.

Yunnan's drought—its worst in six decades—began in the fall of last year. So far, direct economic losses have been estimated at more than 10 billion yuan ($1.47 billion).