SYDNEY: Up to a million people in Australia could face a shortage of drinking water if the country’s drought continues, a report on the state of the nation’s largest river system revealed on Sunday.

The report said the situation was critical in the Murray-Darling system, which provides water to Australia’s “food bowl”, a vast expanse of land almost twice as big as France that runs down the continent’s east coast.

“We are in real trouble in the Murray-Darling basin,” Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told Channel Nine television.

“We’ve had very low inflows, we’ve had a very dry June and the focus absolutely has to be critical human needs, that is the needs of the million-plus people who rely on the basin for drinking water.

“It just reminds us, yet again, the way in which this country, Australia, is particularly vulnerable to climate change.” Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in a century, which has stretched for more than seven years in some areas and has forced restrictions on water usage in the country’’s major cities.

The report said the Murray-Darling system, accounting for more than 40 per cent of the gross value of Australia’s agricultural production, should provide enough drinking water for 2008-09.

But the report from senior federal and state government officials warned there could be problems supplying drinking water after that if rains did not come.

“If inflows are less and losses greater than expected, further contingency measures may be required to be implemented to secure critical human needs,” it said.—AFP