(Adds details on floods, analyst comments) BEIJING, June 19 (Reuters) - China's northeast Liaoning province, a leading corn-producing area, is suffering its worst drought in 30 years, limiting drinking water for more than one million people, the official Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday. The local government has dispatched more than 500,000 people to dig wells and transport water to the worst hit areas in the northwest and south, Xinhua said. High temperatures and inadequate rainfall this month have caused a water shortage affecting 1.27 million people and 473,800 animals, the report said, citing officials in the provincial flood prevention and drought control headquarters. Some 1.4 million hectares of crops, mainly corn and rice paddy, have also been damaged, it said. "The worst-hit areas are not the areas for grains, which are in the central and northern parts of the province," said one analyst with the China National Grain and Oils Information Centre (CNGOIC). The centre earlier this month estimated the country's corn output was likely to hit a record 147 million this year because of larger planting areas. China produced about 146 million tonnes in 2006. In March, the province suffered its heaviest snowstorm in half a century, but persistent high temperatures in late spring and early summer have reduced soil moisture, it said. Heilongjiang, another major corn area north of Liaoning, was also hit by dry weather, and officials were concerned the situation could worsen, according to the report. Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai warned on Monday that poor weather conditions could reduce the country's overall grain output for the full year despite a bigger wheat harvest. He mentioned drought in corn-growing areas in the north, and flooding in rice areas in the south. Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain since the weekend in the southwestern province of Sichuan had killed 15 people -- 10 in Dazhou alone -- and left two missing, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said. Another five were killed in the neighbouring Chongqing municipality and one in the central province of Hubei, the ministry said on its Web site (www.mca.gov.cn) Roads were blocked and power and telecommunication lines were down, it said, adding "agricultural losses" in the three areas, where rains were forecast through the coming weekend, had totalled more than 300 million yuan. Torrential rains have wrought havoc across South China in the past two weeks, killing at least 76 people, damaging houses and destroying hundreds of thousands of hectares of rice crops. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard)
